Functional Equivalents: Religious Attendance, Civic Engagement, and Later-Life Trajectories of Depressive Symptoms

• In Event: Aging and the Life Course Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): 10: Social Connection and Engagement Among Older Adults

Abstract

Religious service attendance is among the most robust predictors of mental health in later life, yet nearly three in ten U.S. adults now report no religious affiliation. As less religious cohorts age—amid retirement, widowhood, and network contraction—more older adults will navigate later life without institutional support from congregations. Existing research offers limited guidance, often treating nonaffiliation as a residual category and overlooking heterogeneity among the unaffiliated.
This paper introduces an identity-congruent social embeddedness framework, arguing that health advantages attributed to religion stem less from affiliation or belief per se than from sustained participation in social contexts congruent with one’s self-concept. A four-cell typology crosses religious affiliation (affiliated/nonaffiliated) with identity-congruent engagement (engaged/disengaged), yielding three predictions: (1) engaged groups exhibit fewer depressive symptoms than disengaged groups regardless of religious identity; (2) civically engaged nonaffiliated older adults exhibit trajectories comparable to religiously engaged affiliates; and (3) the two disengaged groups differ, as affiliated disengagement involves identity dis-verification while nonaffiliated disengagement reflects generalized social deprivation.
Using seven waves (2010–2022) of the Health and Retirement Study (N≈6,400; ~35,176 person-wave observations), growth-curve models estimate 12-year CES-D trajectories across the four cells. Preliminary results support the framework: both engaged groups report significantly fewer depressive symptoms than both disengaged groups, with civically engaged nonaffiliated older adults exhibiting the lowest predicted scores—challenging the view that religious engagement is uniquely protective. Trajectories are roughly parallel, suggesting identity–engagement configurations establish stable mental health differences that persist through later life.
These findings reframe debates about secularization and health: disengagement—not nonaffiliation—is the shared vulnerability, highlighting the importance of accessible, identity-congruent pathways to social integration in aging populations.

Authors

• Mingui Gao, Purdue University

• Hui Liu, Purdue University