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Family Solidarity, Social Support, Loneliness, and Well-Being Among Older Adults in Rural China

China is experiencing a large increase in elderly population. In 2019, China’s population aged 60 and above had reached 253 million, accounting for 18.1% of the total population (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2020). By 2050, the number of adults aged 60+ would be up to 430 million, reachin...

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Autores principales: Zhang, Xiaoyan, Silverstein, Merril
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Oxford University Press 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7741560/
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igaa057.1023
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author Zhang, Xiaoyan
Silverstein, Merril
author_facet Zhang, Xiaoyan
Silverstein, Merril
author_sort Zhang, Xiaoyan
collection PubMed
description China is experiencing a large increase in elderly population. In 2019, China’s population aged 60 and above had reached 253 million, accounting for 18.1% of the total population (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2020). By 2050, the number of adults aged 60+ would be up to 430 million, reaching one third of the total population (Du, Zhai & Chen, 2005). Considering such a rapid aging process and the existing large number of older adults in China, it becomes imperative to investigate how psychosocial factors affect this group’s subjective well-being. This study proposed that, among older adults, higher support received from each of the three relational sources (adult children, family and friends) were associated with reduced loneliness and improved well-being. Structural equation modeling was conducted using a sample of rural adults aged 60 and older (N= 1142) from the 2018 wave of data from the Longitudinal Study of Older Adults in Anhui Province, China. Findings indicated that support from adult children directly and indirectly decreased older adults’ depression and improved their life satisfaction through loneliness; while support from family members directly decreased depression but did not directly improve life satisfaction or indirectly improve well-being through loneliness. Although support from friends did not have a significant impact on older adults’ well-being, it indirectly improved well-being through reduced loneliness. Findings have implications for programs or interventions targeting both parent -adult-child support and friends support and reducing rural older adults’ loneliness.
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spelling pubmed-77415602020-12-21 Family Solidarity, Social Support, Loneliness, and Well-Being Among Older Adults in Rural China Zhang, Xiaoyan Silverstein, Merril Innov Aging Abstracts China is experiencing a large increase in elderly population. In 2019, China’s population aged 60 and above had reached 253 million, accounting for 18.1% of the total population (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2020). By 2050, the number of adults aged 60+ would be up to 430 million, reaching one third of the total population (Du, Zhai & Chen, 2005). Considering such a rapid aging process and the existing large number of older adults in China, it becomes imperative to investigate how psychosocial factors affect this group’s subjective well-being. This study proposed that, among older adults, higher support received from each of the three relational sources (adult children, family and friends) were associated with reduced loneliness and improved well-being. Structural equation modeling was conducted using a sample of rural adults aged 60 and older (N= 1142) from the 2018 wave of data from the Longitudinal Study of Older Adults in Anhui Province, China. Findings indicated that support from adult children directly and indirectly decreased older adults’ depression and improved their life satisfaction through loneliness; while support from family members directly decreased depression but did not directly improve life satisfaction or indirectly improve well-being through loneliness. Although support from friends did not have a significant impact on older adults’ well-being, it indirectly improved well-being through reduced loneliness. Findings have implications for programs or interventions targeting both parent -adult-child support and friends support and reducing rural older adults’ loneliness. Oxford University Press 2020-12-16 /pmc/articles/PMC7741560/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igaa057.1023 Text en © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Abstracts
Zhang, Xiaoyan
Silverstein, Merril
Family Solidarity, Social Support, Loneliness, and Well-Being Among Older Adults in Rural China
title Family Solidarity, Social Support, Loneliness, and Well-Being Among Older Adults in Rural China
title_full Family Solidarity, Social Support, Loneliness, and Well-Being Among Older Adults in Rural China
title_fullStr Family Solidarity, Social Support, Loneliness, and Well-Being Among Older Adults in Rural China
title_full_unstemmed Family Solidarity, Social Support, Loneliness, and Well-Being Among Older Adults in Rural China
title_short Family Solidarity, Social Support, Loneliness, and Well-Being Among Older Adults in Rural China
title_sort family solidarity, social support, loneliness, and well-being among older adults in rural china
topic Abstracts
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7741560/
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igaa057.1023
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