IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/geronb/v80y2025i7p1448-1484..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Childlessness and Depressive Symptoms Among Middle-Aged and Older Adults in China: Examining the Role of Partnership Trajectories

Author

Listed:
  • Hongzhou Chen
  • Junyu Nie
  • Yuanchun Peng

Abstract

ObjectiveAlthough previous studies have recognized the potential connection between childlessness and increased mental health risks in later life, the diverse pathways leading to childlessness remain unclear. This study thus sought to explore the association between patterns of partnership trajectories and depressive symptoms among childless middle-aged and older adults in China.MethodUtilizing sequence analysis, this research identified distinct partnership trajectory patterns among participants from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS). It then examined the associations between these trajectory patterns and depressive symptoms over a 9-year follow-up period.ResultsOur analysis uncovered 5 distinct partnership trajectories: long-term partnership (64.2%), never partnered (20.1%), re-partnered (6%), divorce/separation (3.6%), and widowhood (9.3%). Childless individuals who never partnered exhibited a higher risk of depressive symptoms compared to those with children.ConclusionThe findings suggest that it is the dynamic interplay between childlessness and partnership trajectories, rather than childlessness alone, that significantly influences depressive symptoms in later life. Adopting a life course perspective provides valuable insights into understanding the mental health disparities among the heterogeneous childless population.

Suggested Citation

  • Hongzhou Chen & Junyu Nie & Yuanchun Peng, 2025. "Childlessness and Depressive Symptoms Among Middle-Aged and Older Adults in China: Examining the Role of Partnership Trajectories," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 80(7), pages 1448-1484.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:geronb:v:80:y:2025:i:7:p:1448-1484.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/geronb/gbaf050
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:80:y:2025:i:7:p:1448-1484.. 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.