Monserud Maria A
Department of Sociology, University of Houston, 489 Philip G. Hoffman Hall, Houston, TX, 77204-3012, USA.
J Cross Cult Gerontol. 2019 Sep;34(3):307-324. doi: 10.1007/s10823-019-09380-w.
Research on marital status-gender differences in later-life trajectories of cognitive functioning is scarce. Drawing on seven waves of data from the Hispanic Established Population for the Epidemiologic Study of the Elderly, this research uses growth curve models to examine later-life dynamics of cognitive functioning among married and widowed older men and women of Mexican descent (aged 65+; N = 3329). The findings demonstrate that the widowed, regardless of gender, had lower initial levels of cognition but a less steep cognitive decline across waves, compared to married men. Age and socioeconomic resources accounted for these marital status differences in levels and rates of change in cognitive functioning completely among widowed men and partially among widowed women. Moreover, net of all the factors, married women had a slower cognitive decline than married men. This study also shows that health and social integration might shape cognitive functioning among older adults of Mexican descent.
关于认知功能后期轨迹中婚姻状况与性别的差异研究很少。本研究利用西班牙裔老年流行病学研究的七波数据，采用增长曲线模型，研究墨西哥裔已婚和丧偶老年男性和女性（65岁及以上；N = 3329）认知功能的后期动态变化。研究结果表明，与已婚男性相比，丧偶者无论性别，初始认知水平较低，但各波次间认知衰退较平缓。年龄和社会经济资源完全解释了丧偶男性认知功能水平和变化率方面的婚姻状况差异，部分解释了丧偶女性的这一差异。此外，在控制所有因素后，已婚女性的认知衰退比已婚男性慢。这项研究还表明，健康状况和社会融合可能会影响墨西哥裔老年人的认知功能。
