Social and productive activities and health among partnered older adults: A couple-level analysis

Details

Serval ID
serval:BIB_E6F850CFA160
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
Social and productive activities and health among partnered older adults: A couple-level analysis
Journal
Social Science & Medicine
Author(s)
Lam Jack, Bolano Danilo
ISSN
0277-9536
Publication state
Published
Issued date
05/2019
Volume
229
Pages
126-133
Language
english
Abstract
Objectives:
We theorize and test the health of older adults as a result of their activity engagement, as well as a product of their spouse's engagement.
Method: We draw on 15 waves of couple-level data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey. Using responses of time engaged in nine different activities, we estimate Latent Class Models to describe activity profiles of partnered older adults. Given potential health selections into activity engagement, we lag older adults' activity engagement by one wave to examine its association with subsequent health. We then investigate associations between the lag of the spouse's activities with respondents' health, controlling for their own activity engagement at the previous wave.
Result: We find four activity profiles for men, and three for women. Respondents who were predominantly engaged in community activities generally report better subsequent health. Beyond their own activity engagement, for both older men and women, having a partner who was also community engaged associate with better subsequent health, though for older women, there were little differences between having a husband who was community engaged or inactive.
Discussion: Our findings highlight the value of considering activities of partnered older adults at the couple level.
Keywords
Active ageing, Linked lives, Social engagement, Latent Class Analysis
Pubmed
Create date
14/05/2019 10:10
Last modification date
23/01/2020 6:19
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