Impact of main residential locations on depressive symptoms among older adults in China: A Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition analysis

BACKGROUND: With the development of urbanization in China, the scale of internal migration and the number of immigrants among older adults are increasing. This requires paying attention to the living conditions and environment of immigrants. Many studies note a gap in the prevalence of depressive symptoms among older adults living in different main residential locations. However, few studies have examined the extent to which main residential locations influence depressive symptoms among older adults. This study aims to quantify the effect of main residential locations on depressive symptoms. METHODS: For this study, we used data from the 2018 Chinese Longitudinal Health and Longevity Survey and randomly selected 8,210 individuals aged 65 years and older were from the community to determine the effect of main residential locations on depressive symptoms among older adults. We further used the Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition method to quantify the explanatory factors of depressive symptom gaps among older adults and to estimate the relative effect of individual characteristics on depressive symptoms. RESULTS: In this study, we noted significant differences in depressive symptoms among older adults in different main residential locations. Rural–urban migrants had higher depressive symptom scores (7.164). According to the Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition analysis, the high proportion of the depressive symptom gap can be explained by years of education, income, and exercise among different main residential locations groups. In addition, in the main parts of the explained differences, the proportions of the limitation of activities of daily living (2.28, 0.46, and −52.11%) showed opposite effects, while their share in different main residential locations groups varied widely. CONCLUSION: Urbanization has resulted in more rural people moving to urban areas in China; Rural–urban migrants have the highest prevalence of depressive symptoms, which needs attention. Thus, there is an urgent need to integrate the health insurance and pension policy for urban and rural residents. This study provides a basis for formulating health policies and promoting the mental health of older adults in China as well as in low- and middle-income countries.