Center for Population and Development Studies, Renmin University of China, RM 604, Chongde West Building A, No. 59 Zhongguancun Street, Haidian District, Beijing 100872, China.
Carolina Population Center, Department of Sociology, Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, United States.
Soc Sci Med. 2018 May;204:23-30. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2018.03.021. Epub 2018 Mar 12.
This study examined the patterns of social-network types and their relative survival benefits among Chinese older adults. We examined how macro-level social factors such as cultural norms and unbalanced regional economic development shaped older people's network behaviors, and whether these factors could moderate the association between network types and mortality. Using data from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (2008-2014), we identified four network types-diverse, friend-focused, family-focused, and restricted-based on individuals' social network measures. Multinomial logistic analyses revealed that older people situated in an area with a deeply rooted family culture or a more advanced economy tend to be less likely to enroll in a diverse network than a family-focused one. This prevents them from achieving the best adaptive survival, as Cox regression analyses showed that the family-focused network type was less beneficial than the diverse one for the survival of older adults. Furthermore, while the survival advantage of the diverse-network type over the family-focused type did not change with cultural contexts, economic development attenuated the deleterious effects of the friend-focused network type.
本研究考察了中国老年人的社会网络类型模式及其相对生存获益。我们考察了宏观社会因素（如文化规范和不平衡的区域经济发展）如何塑造老年人的网络行为，以及这些因素是否可以调节网络类型与死亡率之间的关系。利用中国老年健康长寿纵向研究（2008-2014 年）的数据，我们根据个体的社会网络测量指标确定了四种网络类型：多样化、以朋友为中心、以家庭为中心和受限。多项逻辑分析显示，处于家庭文化根深蒂固或经济更发达地区的老年人不太可能加入多样化的网络，而更倾向于加入以家庭为中心的网络。这使他们无法获得最佳的适应性生存，因为 Cox 回归分析表明，与以家庭为中心的网络类型相比，多样化的网络类型对老年人的生存更有益。此外，虽然多样化网络类型相对于以家庭为中心的网络类型的生存优势不因文化背景而改变，但经济发展减弱了以朋友为中心的网络类型的有害影响。
