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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Social contact, socioeconomic status, and the health status of older Malaysians | | Author(s) | Z Helen Wu, Laura Rudkin |
| Journal title | The Gerontologist, vol 40, no 2, April 2000 |
| Pages | pp 228-234 |
| Keywords | Economic status [elderly] ; Health [elderly] ; Social contacts ; Informal care ; Family relationships ; Malaysia. |
| Annotation | The stress buffering hypothesis suggests that the presence of social support will protect (or buffer) a person from the negative health effects associated with various life stressors. The applicability of the hypothesis to developing countries was tested using data from the Senior Sample of the Malaysian Family Life Survey - 2. The authors examined whether having daily contact with adult children moderates the effect of low socioeconomic status (SES, conceptualised as a chronic stressor) on self-assessed health status. Low SES was found to be associated with poorer health for all ethnic groups - Malay, Chinese and Indian. Further, for Malays and Chinese, the negative effects of low SES on health tend to be stronger for older people with less frequent contact with adult children than for those who have daily contact. These results provide strong support for the buffering model and suggest that, as with developed countries, active intergenerational relationships in developing countries may have proactive effects on the health of older people experiencing chronic stressors. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-001102210 A |
| Classmark | F:W: CC: TOA: P6: DS:SJ: 7XA |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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