IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/geronb/v75y2020i10p2142-2151..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Longitudinal Evidence for the Effects of Social Group Engagement on the Cognitive and Mental Health of Chinese Retirees

Author

Listed:
  • Ben C P Lam
  • Catherine Haslam
  • Niklas K Steffens
  • Jie Yang
  • S Alexander Haslam
  • Tegan Cruwys
  • Nancy A Pachana
  • Lynn Martire

Abstract

BackgroundResearch investigating the health benefits of social group participation in the retirement transition has provided little insight into the longitudinal effects on cognitive health and the generalizability of these relationships to non-Western samples. The present paper addresses these issues by examining the effects of social group engagement on the cognitive performance and depression symptoms of Chinese older adults followed over 4 years in their transition to retirement.MethodsUsing the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) data, a sample of 1,297 Chinese seniors transitioning to retirement were followed between 2011 and 2013, and then 2 years later (in 2015) after retirement. Group-based social engagement was used to predict retiree cognitive performance and depression symptoms across time.ResultsAfter controlling for established demographic covariates and close relationship factors at baseline, social group engagement at baseline positively predicted overall cognitive performance and depression symptoms. Moreover, positive change in group engagement was associated with reduced decline in cognitive performance over the 4-year retirement transition period.DiscussionThe current findings demonstrate the generalizability of the health benefits of social group engagement to cognitive health and to a non-Western (Chinese) sample of retirees.

Suggested Citation

  • Ben C P Lam & Catherine Haslam & Niklas K Steffens & Jie Yang & S Alexander Haslam & Tegan Cruwys & Nancy A Pachana & Lynn Martire, 2020. "Longitudinal Evidence for the Effects of Social Group Engagement on the Cognitive and Mental Health of Chinese Retirees," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 75(10), pages 2142-2151.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:geronb:v:75:y:2020:i:10:p:2142-2151.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/geronb/gbz134
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

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

    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:oup:geronb:v:75:y:2020:i:10:p:2142-2151.. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/psychsocgerontology .

    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.