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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Social change and birth cohort increase in loneliness among Chinese older adults
— a cross-temporal meta-analysis, 1995-2011 | | Author(s) | Zhimin Yan, Xun Yang, Lei Wang |
| Journal title | International Psychogeriatrics, vol 26, no 11, November 2014 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press, November 2014 |
| Pages | pp 1773-1781 |
| Source | www.journals.cambridge.org |
| Keywords | Loneliness ; Isolation ; Social change ; Life span ; Longitudinal surveys ; China. |
| Annotation | In China rapid economic growth and increasing social problems constitute two basic characteristics underlying contemporary social change. With dramatic social change, loneliness in older adults may have changed across birth cohorts, thus altering older adults' mental health. The present study aims to identify birth cohort changes in Chinese older adults' loneliness and the social indicators underlying these changes. Cross-temporal meta-analysis was utilised to investigate changes in Chinese older adults' loneliness from 1995 to 2011. 25 studies comprising 13,280 adults aged 60 years or over were analysed employing the University of California at Los Angeles Loneliness Scale. Loneliness scores were correlated with social indicators and matched for three periods: ten years before the data collection, five years before data collection, and during the year of data collection. Results showed that loneliness levels in Chinese older adults have increased by 1.02 standard deviations from 1995 to 2011. Social indicators such as increased urbanisation level, personal medical expenditure, divorce rate, the Gini coefficient and unemployment rate significantly predicted loneliness in Chinese older adults. Decrease in social connectedness and increase in levels of health threat may be responsible for the observed increase in levels of loneliness. Overall, cross-temporal meta-analysis revealed a birth cohort increase in loneliness among Chinese older adults. So changes in social connectedness and levels of health threat are likely to play an important role in predicting loneliness in the population of Chinese older adults. (JL). |
| Accession Number | CPA-150619243 A |
| Classmark | DV: TP: TMH: BG6: 3J: 7DC |
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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