Abstract: The sense of gain has become an important criterion for people to measure the effectiveness of the reform of the basic old-age insurance system for urban and rural residents in the new stage of development. Based on the cross-sectional data of the Chinese Social Survey in 2019 (CSS2019), this paper conducts a quasi-experimental empirical test to explore the impact of the basic old-age insurance for urban and rural residents on the sense of gain of the insured by using the propensity score matching (PSM) method. The results show that the basic old-age insurance can significantly improve the sense of economic gain, political gain and social gain of the insured, and the overall sense of gain of the insured measured from these three dimensions is also greatly enhanced. But the basic old-age insurance has a heterogeneous impact on the sense of gain of different types of insured persons. The females have a lower sense of gain than the males. The older the insured person is, the lower his sense of gain is; the higher the education level of the insured person is, the stronger his sense of political gain is; the urban residents have a lower sense of gain than the rural residents, and the insured in the economically developed eastern regions have a higher sense of gain. In order to further enhance the sense of gain of the insured, this paper proposes that it is necessary to raise the amount of basic pension for urban and rural residents to increase their sense of economic gain, and improve the level of management and service of basic old-age insurance to promote their sense of political gain. In addition, it is essential to expand the coverage of the insurance to advance their sense of social gain.