Abstract
Although it is widely acknowledged that older adults who have gone through negative life events are more likely to develop depression, there is limited evidence on whether and which type of social ties moderate this perceived relationship. Based on 2016 and 2018 waves of Chinese Longitudinal Aging Social Survey (4,466 individuals, 8,932 observations), we apply linear fixed effects models and confirm that negative life events are associated with depressive symptoms for older adults (Coef. = 0.35; 95% CIs 0.11–0.61), and social ties are negatively associated with depression (Coef. = −0.08; 95% CIs −0.10 to −0.07). Our study further suggests that the association between negative life events and depressive symptoms is significantly moderated by friendship ties (Coef. = −0.18, 95% CIs −0.30 to −0.07), rather than family ties (Coef. = −0.03, 95% CIs −0.09 to 0.15). Moreover, the buffering effects of friendship ties are more prominent for the less resilient and less privileged groups, namely male, rural, and less educated older adults. Our findings point to the importance of expanding and strengthening social networks for Chinese older adults in promoting their psychological health.
Highlights
World Health Organization (WHO) names depression among older adults as a key global public health concern [1], which leads to heightened disease burden, poor life quality, and high risk of suicide [2, 3]
In this paper, based on the biennial panel data from 2016 and 2018 waves of Chinese Longitudinal Aging Social Survey (CLASS), a nationally representative elderly survey, we examine the association between negative life events and depressive symptoms for older adults, and more importantly, differentiate the moderating roles of family ties and friendship ties in the perceived association
This paper focuses on the resilience of the older adults in China when experiencing negative life events and examines how social ties buffer the impacts of negative life events
Summary
World Health Organization (WHO) names depression among older adults as a key global public health concern [1], which leads to heightened disease burden, poor life quality, and high risk of suicide [2, 3]. Social Ties and Depressive Symptoms these factors, stress is acknowledged as an important risk factor for depression [9, 10] Negative life events, such as death of family members, severe illness, relationship crisis, and financial problems, pose tremendous stresses on older adults. Along with radical social transformation and massive migration, China has seen prominent family changes in recent decades, such as decline in average household size from 3.1 persons in 2010 to 2.6 persons in 2020, and large increase in one-person and one-generation households at old ages [23, 24] In this circumstance, support from outside household gets increasingly important and critical. In this paper, based on the biennial panel data from 2016 and 2018 waves of Chinese Longitudinal Aging Social Survey (CLASS), a nationally representative elderly survey, we examine the association between negative life events and depressive symptoms for older adults, and more importantly, differentiate the moderating roles of family ties and friendship ties in the perceived association
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