IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/ariqol/v20y2025i1d10.1007_s11482-024-10414-w.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Life Activities Time Allocation and Subjective Well-Being of the Old Adults in China: a Compositional Perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Xuan Chen

    (Zhejiang University
    Tsinghua University)

  • Peng Zhang

    (Tsinghua University)

  • Kaiping Peng

    (Tsinghua University)

  • Yifan Wang

    (Tsinghua University
    University of New South Wales)

Abstract

Various life activities, such as sleep, physical activity (PA), screen use, and learning, are closely related to the mental health and subjective well-being (SWB) of the old adults. Previous studies have focused on a single life activity and used flawed statistical methods, which lead to divergent results, as co-dependency between activities were neglected. This study aimed to explore the relationship between daily activity time and depression and SWB in the old adult group from the perspective of time composition. In this study, we collected data on the sleep, moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA), light PA (LPA), screen use, and learning times of 1,738 old adults from 28 provinces in China. Analyses were performed using a compositional data analysis (CoDA) and isotemporal substitution model (ISM). The study results show that, considering changes in time spent on other activities, learning and LPA were positively associated with SWB and negatively associated with depression. In contrast, MVPA time was negatively associated with SWB and positively associated with depression. Screen use was not associated with SWB but positively associated with depression, and sleep was negatively associated with SWB but had no correlation with depression. The ISM showed that the most effective way to improve SWB and reduce depression is to reduce time spent on MVPA and increase time for learning or LPA.This study was the first to analyze life activities from the perspective of time composition (how to change life activities’ time allocation) to improve well-being and reduce depression among Chinese old adults and provide some practical life advice.

Suggested Citation

  • Xuan Chen & Peng Zhang & Kaiping Peng & Yifan Wang, 2025. "Life Activities Time Allocation and Subjective Well-Being of the Old Adults in China: a Compositional Perspective," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 20(1), pages 369-391, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:ariqol:v:20:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1007_s11482-024-10414-w
    DOI: 10.1007/s11482-024-10414-w
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11482-024-10414-w
    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/s11482-024-10414-w?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.

    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:20:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1007_s11482-024-10414-w. 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: 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.