IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v63y2006i1p118-122.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Social support and self-rated health revisited:: Is there a gender difference in later life?

Author

Listed:
  • Cheng, Sheung-Tak
  • Chan, Alfred C.M.

Abstract

This study examines the physical, behavioral, emotional and social determinants of self-rated health among Chinese older persons, and investigates if the effect of social support varies by gender. A representative sample of 1589 elderly community dwellers in Hong Kong were interviewed using a structured questionnaire. Gender difference in the effect of social support was tested by an interaction term, 'genderxsocial support', in a hierarchical regression analysis. The frequency of falling ill, the number of chronic illnesses, sleep quality, mobility and positive emotions were most important determinants of self-rated health. The effect of social support was completely redundant when these factors were taken into account. The interaction term 'genderxsocial support' was significant and indicated a stronger effect for women, but the effect size was negligible (adding only 0.3% to the explained variance). This suggests that the effect of social support by and large is gender free. These findings suggest a high degree of similarity in the determinants of self-rated health between Western and Chinese older populations.

Suggested Citation

  • Cheng, Sheung-Tak & Chan, Alfred C.M., 2006. "Social support and self-rated health revisited:: Is there a gender difference in later life?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 118-122, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:63:y:2006:i:1:p:118-122
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(05)00692-1
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Benyamini, Yael & Leventhal, Elaine A. & Leventhal, Howard, 2003. "Elderly people's ratings of the importance of health-related factors to their self-assessments of health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 56(8), pages 1661-1667, April.
    2. Sheung-Tak Cheng & Alfred C. M. Chan, 2006. "Relationship With Others and Life Satisfaction in Later Life: Do Gender and Widowhood Make a Difference?," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 61(1), pages 46-53.
    3. Zunzunegui, M. V. & Koné, A. & Johri, M. & Béland, F. & Wolfson, C. & Bergman, H., 2004. "Social networks and self-rated health in two French-speaking Canadian community dwelling populations over 65," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 58(10), pages 2069-2081, May.
    4. Liu, Xian & Liang, Jersey & Gu, Shengzu, 1995. "Flows of social support and health status among older persons in China," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 41(8), pages 1175-1184, October.
    5. Smith, Anthony M. A. & Shelley, Julia M. & Dennerstein, Lorraine, 1994. "Self-rated health: Biological continuum or social discontinuity?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 77-83, July.
    6. Yael Benyamini & Ellen L. Idler & Howard Leventhal & Elaine A. Leventhal, 2000. "Positive Affect and Function as Influences on Self-Assessments of Health," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 55(2), pages 107-116.
    7. Ronald E. Holtzman & George W. Rebok & Jane S. Saczynski & Anthony C. Kouzis & Kathryn Wilcox Doyle & William W. Eaton, 2004. "Social Network Characteristics and Cognition in Middle-Aged and Older Adults," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 59(6), pages 278-284.
    8. Neal Krause, 2004. "Stressors Arising in Highly Valued Roles, Meaning in Life, and the Physical Health Status of Older Adults," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 59(5), pages 287-297.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Shervin Assari & James Smith & Mohsen Bazargan, 2019. "Depression Fully Mediates the Effect of Multimorbidity on Self-Rated Health for Economically Disadvantaged African American Men but Not Women," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(10), pages 1-16, May.
    2. Feng Kong & Ke Ding & Jingjing Zhao, 2015. "The Relationships Among Gratitude, Self-esteem, Social Support and Life Satisfaction Among Undergraduate Students," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 477-489, April.
    3. Anning Hu, 2014. "The Health Benefits of College Education in Urban China: Selection Bias and Heterogeneity," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 115(3), pages 1101-1121, February.
    4. Jane K L Teh & Nai Peng Tey & Sor Tho Ng, 2014. "Ethnic and Gender Differentials in Non-Communicable Diseases and Self-Rated Health in Malaysia," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(3), pages 1-8, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jylhä, Marja, 2009. "What is self-rated health and why does it predict mortality? Towards a unified conceptual model," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 307-316, August.
    2. Baron-Epel, Orna & Kaplan, Giora & Haviv-Messika, Amalia & Tarabeia, Jalal & Green, Manfred S. & Nitzan Kaluski, Dorit, 2005. "Self-reported health as a cultural health determinant in Arab and Jewish Israelis: MABAT--National Health and Nutrition Survey 1999-2001," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 61(6), pages 1256-1266, September.
    3. Cheng, Cheng, 2017. "Anticipated support from children and later-life health in the United States and China," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 201-209.
    4. Laure Sabatier & Spencer Moore, 2015. "Do Our Friends and Relatives Help Us Better Assess Our Health? Examining the Role of Social Networks in the Correspondence Between Self-Rated Health and Having Metabolic Syndrome," SAGE Open, , vol. 5(3), pages 21582440156, September.
    5. Sophie Le Cœur & Aline Desesquelles & Elisabeth Morand & Cheeraya Kanabkaew & Éva Lelièvre, 2017. "Self-rated Health among HIV-infected People Receiving Treatments in Thailand," Asian Social Science, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 13(1), pages 1-20, January.
    6. Francesca Gallè & Elita Anna Sabella & Lavinia Bianco & Mario Maninchedda & Benedetta Barchielli & Fabrizio Liguori & Giovanna Da Molin & Giorgio Liguori & Giovanni Battista Orsi & Stefano Ferracuti &, 2022. "How the COVID-19 Pandemic Has Impacted Daily Life? Assessing the Use of Web Resources for Recreational Activities in the Italian Adult Population," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(22), pages 1-13, November.
    7. Neal Krause & Kenneth I. Pargament, 2017. "Losing My Religion: Exploring the Relationship Between a Decline in Faith and a Positive Affect," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 12(4), pages 885-901, December.
    8. Subramanian, S.V. & Acevedo-Garcia, Dolores & Osypuk, Theresa L., 2005. "Racial residential segregation and geographic heterogeneity in black/white disparity in poor self-rated health in the US: a multilevel statistical analysis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 60(8), pages 1667-1679, April.
    9. Levasseur, Mélanie & Richard, Lucie & Gauvin, Lise & Raymond, Émilie, 2010. "Inventory and analysis of definitions of social participation found in the aging literature: Proposed taxonomy of social activities," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(12), pages 2141-2149, December.
    10. Jane K L Teh & Nai Peng Tey & Sor Tho Ng, 2014. "Ethnic and Gender Differentials in Non-Communicable Diseases and Self-Rated Health in Malaysia," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(3), pages 1-8, March.
    11. Wolf, Jennifer Price & Freisthler, Bridget & McCarthy, Karla Shockley, 2021. "Parenting in poor health: Examining associations between parental health, prescription drug use, and child maltreatment," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 277(C).
    12. García-Muñoz, Teresa & Neuman, Shoshana & Neuman, Tzahi, 2014. "Health Risk Factors among the Older European Populations: Personal and Country Effects," IZA Discussion Papers 8529, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Taiji Noguchi & Ippei Nojima & Tomoe Inoue-Hirakawa & Hideshi Sugiura, 2019. "The Association between Social Support Sources and Cognitive Function among Community-Dwelling Older Adults: A One-Year Prospective Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(21), pages 1-9, October.
    14. Hui-Chuan Hsu, 2010. "Trajectory of Life Satisfaction and its Relationship with Subjective Economic Status and Successful Aging," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 99(3), pages 455-468, December.
    15. Bennett, Rachel & Chepngeno-Langat, Gloria & Evandrou, Maria & Falkingham, Jane, 2015. "Resilience in the face of post-election violence in Kenya: The mediating role of social networks on wellbeing among older people in the Korogocho informal settlement, Nairobi," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 159-167.
    16. Prus, Steven G., 2011. "Comparing social determinants of self-rated health across the United States and Canada," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 50-59, July.
    17. Elliot M. Friedman & Elizabeth Teas, 2023. "Self-Rated Health and Mortality: Moderation by Purpose in Life," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(12), pages 1-14, June.
    18. Leger, Kate A. & Charles, Susan T. & Ayanian, John Z. & Almeida, David M., 2015. "The association of daily physical symptoms with future health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 241-248.
    19. Au, N. & Johnston, D. W., 2013. "An econometric analysis of self-assessed health: what does it mean and what is it hiding?," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 13/31, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    20. Gunasekara, Fiona Imlach & Carter, Kristie & Blakely, Tony, 2012. "Comparing self-rated health and self-assessed change in health in a longitudinal survey: Which is more valid?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(7), pages 1117-1124.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:63:y:2006:i:1:p:118-122. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.