IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pri/opopre/opr0202.pdf.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Social Ties and Perceived Support: Two Dimensions of Social Relationships and Health Among the Elderly in Taiwan

Author

Listed:
  • Jennifer C. Cornman

    (Princeton University)

  • Noreen Goldman

    (Princeton University)

  • Dana A. Glei

    (Georgetown University)

  • Maxine Weinstein

    (Georgetown University)

  • Ming-Cheng Chang

    (Bureau of Health Promotions, Department of Health, Taiwan)

Abstract

Assess the effects of social relationships on physical and mental health among the elderly in Taiwan. Using four waves of a survey of the elderly, we examine the relationship between social ties and perceived support and four health outcomes -- mortality, functional status, self-assessed health and depression. Perceived support and social ties are related to health, but many of the apparent effects are attenuated in the presence of controls for prior health. However, positive perceptions about support are protective of mental (but not physical) health. If baseline health is ignored, estimates of the effects of social relationships on health at a given stage of life are likely to be inflated by reverse causality or by effects occurring prior to baseline. Inclusion of controls for initial health reveals that, in general, the relationship between social support and health at the older ages in Taiwan is relatively modest.

Suggested Citation

  • Jennifer C. Cornman & Noreen Goldman & Dana A. Glei & Maxine Weinstein & Ming-Cheng Chang, 2002. "Social Ties and Perceived Support: Two Dimensions of Social Relationships and Health Among the Elderly in Taiwan," Working Papers 307, Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Office of Population Research..
    • Handle: RePEc:pri:opopre:opr0202.pdf
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://web.archive.org/web/20150906201137/http://opr.princeton.edu/papers/opr0202.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    social support; perceived support; health; elderly; Taiwan;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination

    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:pri:opopre:opr0202.pdf. 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: Bobray Bordelon (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/opprius.html .

    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.