Culturally-specific productive engagement and self-rated health among Taiwanese older adults

Abstract

Productive aging is one of the most prominent gerontological concepts in Western societies over the past three decades. However, it is relatively unknown what types of productive engagement affect self-rated health in Asian societies. The mechanisms linking them are also not thoroughly explored. Using the representative 2017 Taichung Good Elderly Life Survey (N = 616), this study examined whether and how work-related, family-related, and community-related types of productive engagement are associated with self-rated health among older adults in Taiwan. This study first revealed the culturally-prioritized types of family-related engagement (i.e., emotional support for adult children and leisure care for grandchildren) and several types of community-related engagement were significantly and positively related to self-rated health, whereas employment, financial and instrumental types of support/grandparenting, and volunteering were not. Second, this study indicated that the previously understudied psychosocial mechanisms (i.e., resilience, sense of control, making new friends, and schedule compliance) partially accounted for the association between productive engagement and self-rated health. Findings suggest the importance of examining culturally-specific indicators of productive aging and their differential health effects in non-Western contexts.