IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/ariqol/v17y2022i4d10.1007_s11482-021-10033-9.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Health Consequences of Online Social Capital among Middle-Aged and Older Adults in China

Author

Listed:
  • Junfeng Jiang

    (Central China Normal University)

  • Jiang Song

    (Yangzhou University)

Abstract

With the rapid development of Internet techniques in China, more and more Chinese middle-aged and older adults have begun to use the Internet for their daily social interactions, and the resulting online social capital may affect their health. Using data from the Chinese General Social Survey of 2017 (n = 7733, aged 45–90 years old), this study investigated the influence of online social capital on the health of middle-aged and older adults in China, and the Heckman sample selection model was used to address potential sample selection bias in Internet use. The results show that number of online contacts significantly improved the physical health of middle-aged and older adults, while the level of depression was significantly reduced by online closeness of non-specific relationships, but more online interactions may slightly increase their depression. Furthermore, more online contacts were associated with elevated physical health among male, rural, less-educated and middle-aged adults, while more online closeness of non-specific relationships was associated with less depression in almost all subgroups. Online social capital can improve the health of middle-aged and older adults in China, so we should help increase older adults’ access to the Internet and improve their Internet skills to give full play to the positive health effect of online social capital. However, it should be alert to the negative health consequences caused by excessive Internet use.

Suggested Citation

  • Junfeng Jiang & Jiang Song, 2022. "Health Consequences of Online Social Capital among Middle-Aged and Older Adults in China," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 17(4), pages 2277-2297, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:ariqol:v:17:y:2022:i:4:d:10.1007_s11482-021-10033-9
    DOI: 10.1007/s11482-021-10033-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11482-021-10033-9
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11482-021-10033-9?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. Kawachi, I. & Kennedy, B.P. & Glass, R., 1999. "Social capital and self-rated health: A contextual analysis," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 89(8), pages 1187-1193.
    2. Xue, Xindong & Reed, W. Robert & Menclova, Andrea, 2020. "Social capital and health: a meta-analysis," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    3. Qian Liu & Haimin Pan & Yuanyuan Wu, 2020. "Migration Status, Internet Use, and Social Participation among Middle-Aged and Older Adults in China: Consequences for Depression," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(16), pages 1-13, August.
    4. Ester Villalonga-Olives & Josue Almansa & Cheryl L. Knott & Yusuf Ransome, 2020. "Social capital and health status: longitudinal race and ethnicity differences in older adults from 2006 to 2014," International Journal of Public Health, Springer;Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), vol. 65(3), pages 291-302, April.
    5. Dongdong Jiang & Yitan Hou & Jinwei Hao & Jiayi Zhou & Junfeng Jiang & Quan Wang, 2020. "Association between Personal Social Capital and Loneliness among Widowed Older People," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(16), pages 1-11, August.
    6. Rodgers, Justin & Valuev, Anna V. & Hswen, Yulin & Subramanian, S.V., 2019. "Social capital and physical health: An updated review of the literature for 2007–2018," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 236(C), pages 1-1.
    7. Wang, Ruoxi & Chen, Zhuo & Zhou, Yongjie & Shen, Lining & Zhang, Zhiguo & Wu, Xiang, 2019. "Melancholy or mahjong? Diversity, frequency, type, and rural-urban divide of social participation and depression in middle- and old-aged Chinese: A fixed-effects analysis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 238(C), pages 1-1.
    8. Trent A. Engbers & Michael F. Thompson & Timothy F. Slaper, 2017. "Theory and Measurement in Social Capital Research," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 132(2), pages 537-558, June.
    9. Heckman, James, 2013. "Sample selection bias as a specification error," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 31(3), pages 129-137.
    10. Maria Felice Arezzo & Cristina Giudici, 2017. "The Effect of Social Capital on Health Among European Older Adults: An Instrumental Variable Approach," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 134(1), pages 153-166, October.
    11. Liu, Gordon G. & Xue, Xindong & Yu, Chenxi & Wang, Yafeng, 2016. "How does social capital matter to the health status of older adults? Evidence from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Survey," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 22(C), pages 177-189.
    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. Junfeng Jiang & Peigang Wang, 2020. "Is Linking Social Capital More Beneficial to the Health Promotion of the Poor? Evidence from China," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 147(1), pages 45-71, January.
    2. Fabrice Murtin & Federica Marzo, 2007. "HIV/AIDS and Poverty in South Africa: a Bayesian Estimation," Cahiers de recherche 07-08, Departement d'économique de l'École de gestion à l'Université de Sherbrooke.
    3. Quintal, Carlota & Ramos, Luís Moura & Torres, Pedro, 2023. "Disentangling the complexities of modelling when high social capital contributes to indicating good health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 320(C).
    4. Hswen, Yulin & Qin, Qiuyuan & Williams, David R. & Viswanath, K. & Brownstein, John S. & Subramanian, S.V., 2020. "The relationship between Jim Crow laws and social capital from 1997–2014: A 3-level multilevel hierarchical analysis across time, county and state," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 262(C).
    5. Inbar Weiss & Pamela Paxton & Kristopher Velasco & Robert W. Ressler, 2019. "Revisiting Declines in Social Capital: Evidence from a New Measure," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 142(3), pages 1015-1029, April.
    6. Mohammad Javad Koohsari & Akitomo Yasunaga & Ai Shibata & Kaori Ishii & Rina Miyawaki & Kuniko Araki & Tomoki Nakaya & Tomoya Hanibuchi & Gavin R. McCormack & Koichiro Oka, 2021. "Dog ownership, dog walking, and social capital," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-6, December.
    7. Susan Lagaert & Thom Snaphaan & Veerle Vyncke & Wim Hardyns & Lieven J. R. Pauwels & Sara Willems, 2021. "A Multilevel Perspective on the Health Effect of Social Capital: Evidence for the Relative Importance of Individual Social Capital over Neighborhood Social Capital," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(4), pages 1-21, February.
    8. Borgonovi, Francesca & Andrieu, Elodie, 2020. "Bowling together by bowling alone: Social capital and COVID-19," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 265(C).
    9. Naoki Akaeda, 2021. "Welfare States and the Health Impact of Social Capital: Focusing on the Crowding-Out and Crowding-In Perspectives," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 157(3), pages 841-862, October.
    10. Yiwen Zhang & Junfeng Jiang, 2019. "Social Capital and Health in China: Evidence from the Chinese General Social Survey 2010," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 142(1), pages 411-430, February.
    11. Junfeng Jiang & Qingqun Li & Ru Kang & Peigang Wang, 2020. "Social Trust and Health: a Perspective of Urban-Rural Comparison in China," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 15(3), pages 737-756, July.
    12. Martine Visser & Frikkie Booysen, 2004. "Determinants of the choice of health care facility utilised by individuals in HIV/AIDS-affected households in the Free State province of South Africa," SALDRU/CSSR Working Papers 087, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    13. Darima Fotheringham & Michael A. Wiles, 2023. "The effect of implementing chatbot customer service on stock returns: an event study analysis," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 51(4), pages 802-822, July.
    14. Song, Wei-Ling & Uzmanoglu, Cihan, 2016. "TARP announcement, bank health, and borrowers’ credit risk," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 22(C), pages 22-32.
    15. Raymundo M. Campos-Vázquez, 2013. "Efectos de los ingresos no reportados en el nivel y tendencia de la pobreza laboral en México," Ensayos Revista de Economia, Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon, Facultad de Economia, vol. 0(2), pages 23-54, November.
    16. Stephen Brown & William Goetzmann & Bing Liang & Christopher Schwarz, 2008. "Mandatory Disclosure and Operational Risk: Evidence from Hedge Fund Registration," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(6), pages 2785-2815, December.
    17. Paul W. Miller & Barry R. Chiswick, 2002. "Immigrant earnings: Language skills, linguistic concentrations and the business cycle," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 15(1), pages 31-57.
    18. Chul‐Woo Kwon & Peter F. Orazem & Daniel M. Otto, 2006. "Off‐farm labor supply responses to permanent and transitory farm income," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 34(1), pages 59-67, January.
    19. Jonathan Gruber & Aaron Yelowitz, 1999. "Public Health Insurance and Private Savings," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(6), pages 1249-1274, December.
    20. Jean-Louis Arcand & Linguère M'Baye, 2013. "Braving the waves: the role of time and risk preferences in illegal migration from Senegal," CERDI Working papers halshs-00855937, HAL.

    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:spr:ariqol:v:17:y:2022:i:4:d:10.1007_s11482-021-10033-9. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.