Social Participation and Life Satisfaction Among Widowed Older Adults in China
View/ Open
Date
2016-10-14Author
Li, Yawen
Xu, Ling
Min, Joohong
Chi, Iris
Xie, Bin
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Aim: Little is known about how widowed older adults in China adjust during widowhood. This paper examines the
relationship between their changes in social participation following spousal loss and their reported life satisfaction.
Methods: Using two-wave (2000 and 2006) national representative data from China, we regressed measures of
widowhood status, changes of social participation, health function, financial strain as well as living arrangement on
life satisfaction after adjusting for baseline life satisfaction and other sociodemographic variables.
Results: Increased social participation was related to higher levels of life satisfaction. This study did not find
evidence that individuals who experienced widowhood would benefit more compared to those remained married
from increasing social participation after spousal loss.
Conclusions: Social participation is one way older adults can potentially improve life satisfaction. In addition to
focusing on family support during widowhood, practitioners could consider developing appropriate social activities to
engage older adults with particular consideration of those remained widowed for long.
Collections
The following license files are associated with this item: