Aging well in an aging world: The impact of material conditions, culture, and societal disruptions

Heterogeneous effects of socio-economic status on social engagement level among Chinese older adults: evidence from CHARLS 2020

Introduction

Older adults benefit from social connections as it aids in their adjustment to the physical and psychological changes that come with aging, thereby improving their health, well-being, and overall quality of life.

Methods

This study utilizes data from the 2020 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) to investigate the influence of Socio-economic Status (SES) on the social activity levels of older persons and the disparities observed among demographic groups, employing the Heckman two-stage analysis and heterogeneity analysis.

Results

The results indicate that SES has a significant positive impact on the social engagement of older adults, and this effect varies across different older groups, with women, married individuals living with a spouse, urban residents, those aged 70-79, and individuals with average health conditions.

Discussion

To effectively address the social needs of older adults, it is essential to prioritize integrating cohesive structural methods that improve social connections. Establishing solid and sustainable social support mechanisms and meeting the social needs of older adults across various SES and demographic groups are crucial in promoting active and healthy aging.

A network perspective on marital satisfaction among older couples

It will be helpful for older people to maintain good mental health by improving their marital satisfaction. The present study investigates how the elements of marital satisfaction among older couples are related to each other and reveal the key elements. Four hundred ninety-four older people participated in the study. Marital satisfaction was assessed by the 10-item marital satisfaction subscale of the ENRICH scale. Network analysis was adopted to estimate the network structure of these 10 items and the strength centrality of each item was calculated. The results showed that all edges in the final network were positive. Four edges with the strongest regularized partial correlations appeared between “ leisure activities and spending time together” and “ emotional expression”; “ personality and habits” and “ communication and understanding”; “ economic status and the manner of determining economic affairs” and “ relationship with relatives and friends”; and “ make decisions and resolve conflict” and “ emotional expression.” In addition, “ emotional expression” had the highest node strength value in the network. “ Communication and understanding” and “ views are consistent” had the second and third highest node strength values, respectively. “ Views are consistent” was more central in males than females and was the second central node in male networks. In conclusion, the present study offers a new perspective to deepen the understanding about the internal structure of marital satisfaction among older couples via network analysis. The results might provide potential targets of intervention for social workers or family therapists to greatly improve marital satisfaction among older couples.

Re-imagining world: From human health in the world to 'all-world health'

This article explores the concept of 'world' as it frequently appears across health studies; specifically largely humanistic and phenomenological variations in use of 'the world' and 'lifeworld' are considered as they have helped cast knowledge on health and care. Looking forward, it is argued that world might be reimagined post-humanistically and post-phenomenologically as a vital emergent material entity and property. This is a reimagination that pays dividends by drawing attention to all-world processes and productions, hence to 'all-world health'. On one level, all-world health involves consideration of the healths of all the world's material and biological entities (all parts of the world). On another level, all-world health involves understanding what an entity gains from its total surround as it moves through life (all parts of its world). Together these levels provide a more processual, relational and holistic understanding of health than that provided by traditional notions of human health states, determinants or meanings, and even by some environmental (ist) ideas on health. All-world health arguably provides a vision of interrelatedness on which greater unity, cooperation and care might be built.