Links between Activities of Daily Living and Life Satisfaction of the Chinese Elderly

• In Event: Aging and the Life Course Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): 9: Social Activities Among Older Adults

Abstract

ABSTRACT
Guided by the Activity Theory of Aging that keeping active after retirement maintains life satisfaction, this study tests the hypothesis that life satisfaction of the Chinese elderly is associated with their activities of daily living (ADLs) such as cooking, eating, toileting, bathing and physical and non-physical activities such as walking, dancing, reading, and using WeChat, by controlling for the effect of sociodemographic characteristics and psychological wellbeing such as gender, age, economic status, health status, and feel lonely. Utilizing Chi-Square significant test on national survey data of 11,398 respondents 60 years and above, the results show life satisfaction has moderate and consistent association with ADLs and physical activities, but weak association with non-physical activities except the activity of WeChat. In addition, life satisfaction is found to be moderately associated with psychological wellbeing in comparison to relative weak association with sociodemographic characteristics. The results are largely in conformity with the underlying theory and hypothesis. It is suggested that policy makers do more in expanding community-village-based activity, promoting digital literacy via WeChat training, and addressing concern of feeling lonely among the increasingly older population.

Author

• Jianjun Ji, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire