Self-perceived Age and Attitudes Toward Marketing of Older Consumers in China

War-Related Life Course Stress and Late-Life Subjective Age in Northern Vietnam

Background and Objectives

The role of early life stressors in subjective aging is weakly understood, especially in low- to middle-income countries. This paper investigated how early life stressors encountered in armed conflict influence subjective age among Vietnamese older adults who experienced war over decades of their early life.

Research Design and Methods

We analyzed survey data from the 2018 Vietnam Health and Aging Study involving 2,447 Vietnamese older adults who encountered diverse war-related stressors in early adulthood. The analytical sample (N = 2,341) included 50.9% women and 49.1% men, with an average age of 69.8. 41.1% are military veterans. We conducted survey-adjusted multinomial logistic regression analyses with mediation to predict the probability of feeling younger or older than one's chronological age. We examined how childhood adversity (i.e., childhood hunger and low parental SES) and wartime stressors (i.e., war-related violence, malevolent environment, and military service) influenced late-life subjective age, both directly and as mediated by late-life mental, functional, and physical health.

Results

We found significant associations between early adulthood war-related stressors and subjective age. Formal military service significantly lessened the relative risk of feeling subjectively old, and more plentiful wartime violence exposures significantly increased the risk of feeling younger than one's chronological age. Violence exposure's effects were both direct and indirect through functional and mental health. Conversely, greater exposure to wartime malevolent conditions (e.g., shortages of clean water and evacuations) and multiple episodes of severe hunger in childhood increased the risk of feeling older, effects both direct and mediated by late-life functional and mental health.

Discussion and Implications

Results suggest wartime stressors, especially war's malevolent environments and severe childhood hunger, experienced in many conflict-affected populations globally, have the potential to subjectively "age" survivors. Yet, not all war exposures are equal, and some may yield psychological and socioeconomic resources that support healthy aging.

Wearable device adoption among older adults: A mixed-methods study

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Using a mixed-methods approach, we analyzed the adoption of wearable devices among older adults.

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Perceived complexity of devices (specifically interpreting the outputs) is the most salient deterrent of adoption.

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The effect of cognitive age on adoption is moderated by subjective well-being (SWB).

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Cognitive age negatively (vs. positively) impacts the older adults’ adoption intention when their SWB is high (vs. low).

Recently, the popularity of smart wearable technologies, such as Fitbit, has significantly increased. There are numerous potential benefits in using these devices, especially among seniors. Yet, little is known about seniors’ adoption behavior. Through a mixed-methods approach, this study investigates the factors that impact seniors’ intention to use wearable devices. Results from an online survey and interviews showed that seniors’ perception of the complexity of working with these devices is a barrier to their adoption decisions. Looking more deeply into the role of complexity revealed that seniors’ concern about the complexity of reading and interpreting the output of wearable devices is the main deterring element. Furthermore, we explored the role of two important elements: seniors’ cognitive age, and the influence of their subjective well-being on their adoption behavior. Results demonstrated that cognitive age does not significantly impact use intention by itself; nonetheless, subjective well-being moderates its effect. This result revealed an interesting finding, which is that the influence of cognitive age on seniors’ use intention depends on seniors’ level of subjective well-being. When seniors’ subjective well-being is low, surprisingly, cognitive age increases seniors’ intention to use the device. These findings provide interesting implications for practice and future research.

The Longitudinal Association Between Age Identity and Physical Functioning Among Urban Chinese Older Adults

The aim of this study is to determine the longitudinal association between age identity and physical functioning among urban Chinese older adults. We conducted secondary data analyses based on a sample of older adults aged 60 years and above who participated in both the 2006 and the 2010 Sample Survey on Aged Population in Urban/Rural China, which consisted of 5,788 urban community-dwelling older adults. A single-item measure of age identity was used to distinguish between old and youthful age identities (or the feeling of being old or not). Ordinary least regression analyses revealed that youthful age identity was significantly associated with better physical functioning, even when controlling for baseline sociodemographic and health variables as well as baseline physical functioning. This study provides new cross-cultural and longitudinal evidence of the protective function of youthful age identity in later life.

The cross-domain correlates of subjective age in Chinese oldest-old

OBJECTIVES

This study examined subjective age and its cross-domain correlates in Chinese oldest-old.

METHOD

We conducted a secondary data analysis using cross-sectional data drawn from the 2006 Sample Survey on the Aged Population in Urban/Rural China, which consisted of a sample of 860 community-dwelling Chinese older adults aged 85 years and above.

RESULTS

A small percentage (8%) of the oldest-old participants reported that they did not feel old. Binary logistic regression analyses revealed that urban living, better physical and self-reported cognitive functioning and mental health were all related to not feeling old, whereas chronological age was found to have no association with subjective age when controlling for indicators of physical and self-reported cognitive functioning.

CONCLUSION

The findings revealed the key roles of functional limitations and mental health in the construction of subjective age in Chinese oldest-old. The possible cross-cultural similarity in the links of subjective age to mental health and physical functioning in later life suggests that maintaining a youthful subjective age may have adaptive value for the oldest-old and contribute to their successful aging.