IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v365y2025ics0277953624010682.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Age-friendly community environments and the age trajectories of long-term care dependency among Chinese older adults

Author

Listed:
  • Nie, Peng
  • Li, Qiaoge

Abstract

In the context of rapid global aging, the importance of age-friendly community environments for promoting healthy aging and “aging in place” continues to increase. Using data from the 2011–2020 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, this study investigated the impact of an age-friendly community environment on the age trajectories of late-life long-term care (LTC) dependency among older Chinese adults aged 60+ years. Age-friendly community environments were defined according to three levels (poor, moderate, or good) based on the World Health Organization's age-friendly city and community framework, and LTC dependency was classified as level 1 (high), level 2 (medium), or level 3 (low) according to activities of daily living and instrumental activities of daily living scores. We classified participants into two age trajectory groups according to their level of LTC dependency: early-onset and late-onset groups. We found that an age-friendly community environment, especially a good housing environment, was consistently associated with the probability of having late-onset LTC dependency at any level. Having moderate and good social and employment environments reduced the likelihood of having early-onset level 2 and level 3 LTC dependency. Our mechanism analysis also revealed that age-friendly community environments affect LTC dependency through social participation. Our results may help elucidate the importance of promoting age-friendly community environments to maintain late-life functional ability and support healthy aging.

Suggested Citation

  • Nie, Peng & Li, Qiaoge, 2025. "Age-friendly community environments and the age trajectories of long-term care dependency among Chinese older adults," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 365(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:365:y:2025:i:c:s0277953624010682
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.117614
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953624010682
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.117614?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    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. María-Victoria Zunzunegui & Beatriz E. Alvarado & Teodoro Del Ser & Angel Otero, 2003. "Social Networks, Social Integration, and Social Engagement Determine Cognitive Decline in Community-Dwelling Spanish Older Adults," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 58(2), pages 93-100.
    2. Pan, Zhuolin & Liu, Yuqi & Liu, Ye & Huo, Ziwen & Han, Wenchao, 2024. "Age-friendly neighbourhood environment, functional abilities and life satisfaction: A longitudinal analysis of older adults in urban China," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 340(C).
    3. Jin Wang & Nan Liu & Xiaoguang Zhao, 2022. "Association of Playing Cards or Mahjong with Cognitive Function in Chinese Older Adults," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(15), pages 1-11, July.
    4. Moogoor, Adithi & Močnik, Špela & Yuen, Belinda, 2022. "Neighbourhood environmental influences on older adults’ physical activities and social participation in Singapore: A photovoice study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 310(C).
    5. Wooldridge, Jeffrey M., 2007. "Inverse probability weighted estimation for general missing data problems," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 141(2), pages 1281-1301, December.
    6. Ye Luo & Lingling Zhang & Xi Pan & Deborah Carr, 2019. "Neighborhood Environments and Cognitive Decline Among Middle-Aged and Older People in China," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 74(7), pages 60-71.
    7. Kimiko Tomioka & Norio Kurumatani & Hiroshi Hosoi, 2018. "Social Participation and Cognitive Decline Among Community-dwelling Older Adults: A Community-based Longitudinal Study," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 73(5), pages 799-806.
    8. Bo Li & Juan Chen, 2022. "Barriers to Community-Based Primary Health Care Delivery in Urban China: A Systematic Mapping Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(19), pages 1-18, October.
    9. Zhu, Yumei & Österle, August, 2017. "Rural-urban disparities in unmet long-term care needs in China: The role of the hukou status," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 30-37.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Ning, Manxiu & Gong, Jinquan & Zheng, Xuhui & Zhuang, Jun, 2016. "Does New Rural Pension Scheme decrease elderly labor supply? Evidence from CHARLS," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 315-330.
    2. Rachel L. Peterson & Kristen M. George & Duyen Tran & Pallavi Malladi & Paola Gilsanz & Amy J. H. Kind & Rachel A. Whitmer & Lilah M. Besser & Oanh L. Meyer, 2021. "Operationalizing Social Environments in Cognitive Aging and Dementia Research: A Scoping Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(13), pages 1-19, July.
    3. Turner, Alex J. & Fichera, Eleonora & Sutton, Matt, 2021. "The effects of in-utero exposure to influenza on mental health and mortality risk throughout the life-course," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    4. Sant’Anna, Pedro H.C. & Zhao, Jun, 2020. "Doubly robust difference-in-differences estimators," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 219(1), pages 101-122.
    5. Michele Cantarella & Chiara Strozzi, 2021. "Workers in the crowd: the labor market impact of the online platform economy [An evaluation of instrumental variable strategies for estimating the effects of catholic schooling]," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 30(6), pages 1429-1458.
    6. Ruoxuan Xiong & Allison Koenecke & Michael Powell & Zhu Shen & Joshua T. Vogelstein & Susan Athey, 2021. "Federated Causal Inference in Heterogeneous Observational Data," Papers 2107.11732, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2023.
    7. N'dri, Lasme Mathieu & Kakinaka, Makoto, 2020. "Financial inclusion, mobile money, and individual welfare: The case of Burkina Faso," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(3).
    8. Mittag, Nikolas, 2016. "Correcting for Misreporting of Government Benefits," IZA Discussion Papers 10266, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Feld, Jan & Salamanca, Nicolás & Zölitz, Ulf, 2019. "Students are almost as effective as professors in university teaching," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    10. Yi Rong Hoo & George Joseph & Rafael Rivera & Susanna Smets & Hanh Nguyen & Per Ljung & Sreymom Um & Georgia Davis & Jeff Albert, 2022. "Strategic complements: Poverty-targeted subsidy programs show additive benefits on household toilet purchases in rural Cambodia when coupled with sanitation marketing," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(6), pages 1-27, June.
    11. Hector Espinoza & Stefan Speckesser, 2019. "A Comparison of Earnings Related to Higher Level Vocational/Technical and Academic Education," National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) Discussion Papers 502, National Institute of Economic and Social Research.
    12. Trine Filges & Anu Siren & Torben Fridberg & Bjørn C. V. Nielsen, 2020. "Voluntary work for the physical and mental health of older volunteers: A systematic review," Campbell Systematic Reviews, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 16(4), December.
    13. Kimiko Tomioka & Norio Kurumatani & Keigo Saeki, 2018. "The differential effects of type and frequency of social participation on IADL declines of older people," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(11), pages 1-17, November.
    14. Metheny, Nicholas & Dusing, Gabriel John & Ndagurwa, Pedzisai & Mkhize, Sthembiso Pollen, 2025. "Disparities in quality of life by race, gender, and sexual orientation: An intersectional analysis of population-representative data in Gauteng, South Africa," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 366(C).
    15. Rashid Javed & Mazhar Mughal, 2019. "Have a Son, Gain a Voice: Son Preference and Female Participation in Household Decision Making," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(12), pages 2526-2548, December.
    16. Plamen Nikolov & Steve Yeh, 2021. "Reaping the Rewards Later: How Education Improves Old-Age Cognition in South Africa," Papers 2109.02177, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2021.
    17. Bradley Hardy & Timothy Smeeding & James P. Ziliak, 2018. "The Changing Safety Net for Low-Income Parents and Their Children: Structural or Cyclical Changes in Income Support Policy?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 55(1), pages 189-221, February.
    18. Stella Min & Miles G. Taylor, 2018. "Racial and Ethnic Variation in the Relationship Between Student Loan Debt and the Transition to First Birth," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 55(1), pages 165-188, February.
    19. Defever, F. & Riaño, A. & Varela, G., 2020. "Evaluating the Impact of Export Finance Support On Firm-level Export Performance: Evidence from Pakistan," Working Papers 20/14, Department of Economics, City University London.
    20. Jain, Apoorva & Peter, Klara Sabirianova, 2017. "Limits to Wage Growth: Understanding the Wage Divergence between Immigrants and Natives," IZA Discussion Papers 10891, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    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:365:y:2025:i:c:s0277953624010682. 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.