Kong Dexia, Li Xiaomin, LeBaron-Black Ashley B, Fung Helene H
Department of Social Work, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
Department of Applied Social Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China.
J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci. 2025 Jun 10;80(7). doi: 10.1093/geronb/gbaf075.
Previous research on social activity engagement in later life predominantly employed an individual-focused approach, restricting our understanding of how engagement in social activities as a couple can influence both relational and individual outcomes. This study examines the relationship between couples' combination of social engagement and husbands' and wives' marital satisfaction, and subsequently, their depressive symptoms.
Three waves of data on a sample of 3,889 couples from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study were used. We tested 3 operationalizations of couples' combination of social engagement-profile-based similarity (i.e., how similar a husband and wife are in their engagement in specific activities), difference score-based similarity (i.e., the absolute difference between a husband and a wife), and a couple's overall engagement level (i.e., the average of a couple's engagement scores)-to ascertain their associations with marital satisfaction and depressive symptoms. We also investigated how these associations differed between rural and urban couples.
Our results reveal that-in urban but not rural areas-a couple's higher overall engagement level positively influences both partners' relational and individual well-being, and these associations vary by gender.
Couples' overall level of activity engagement during midlife and older adulthood positively influences both partners' well-being. Promoting social engagement within couples presents a promising intervention strategy to disrupt the well-documented reciprocal link between social engagement and depressive symptoms.
以往关于晚年社会活动参与度的研究主要采用以个体为中心的方法，限制了我们对夫妻共同参与社会活动如何影响关系和个体结果的理解。本研究考察了夫妻社会参与度的组合与丈夫和妻子的婚姻满意度之间的关系，以及随后他们的抑郁症状。
使用了来自中国健康与养老追踪调查的3889对夫妻样本的三轮数据。我们测试了夫妻社会参与度组合的三种操作化方式——基于概况的相似性（即夫妻在参与特定活动方面的相似程度）、基于差异分数的相似性（即夫妻之间的绝对差异）以及夫妻的总体参与水平（即夫妻参与分数的平均值）——以确定它们与婚姻满意度和抑郁症状的关联。我们还研究了这些关联在农村和城市夫妻之间的差异。
我们的结果表明，在城市地区而非农村地区，夫妻较高的总体参与水平对双方的关系和个体幸福感有积极影响，并且这些关联因性别而异。
中年和老年夫妻的总体活动参与水平对双方的幸福感有积极影响。促进夫妻之间的社会参与是一种有前景的干预策略，可以打破社会参与和抑郁症状之间有据可查的相互联系。
