Daily Contact and Mental Health among the Elderly

Yang-chih Fu

Academia Sinica, Taiwan

Conference on “Chinese Healthy Aging and Socioeconomics: International Perspectives”

August 20-21, 2004

Duke University

Physical fitness

Social conditions:

- socioeconomics: wealth, status, prestige

- social network/ interpersonal contact

Determinants of mental health

Personal networks of the elderly persons decrease due to:

• Friends of the same cohort passed away

• Having retired from work

• Overall fertility rate decreases, resulting in fewer family/relatives

• Physical disabilities

Gender difference

• Women may be generally more social than men, but more men work, a major source that helps expand personal networks.

• Status/achievements are important in men’s psychological well-being, while social contacts/relationships seem more critical to women.

Measuring networks of the elderly persons

Add up separate items of social support or frequency of interaction from/with:

adult children, friends, neighbors (nonkin)

Name generator – core network

Alternative measures of personal networks

• Position generator (Nan Lin) – to reveal weak ties and accessibility to hierarchical resources

• Daily contact – various ties, strong or weak

On average, about how many people do you make contact with in a typical day (on the one-on-one basis, including all those who you say hello, chat, talk, or discuss matters with, whether you do it face-to-face, by telephone, by mail, or on the internet, and whether you personally know the person or not) ?

Please give your estimate and select one from the following categories that best matches your estimate.

(1) 0-4 persons,

(2) 5-9,

(3) 10-19,

(4) 20-49,

(5) 50-99,

(6) over 100.

Table 1

Distributions of the Single-item Measure: Range of Daily Contacts

A. Taiwan (1993-2002)B. Shianghai, Wuhan, Nanjin (1998), Hong Kong (2000)

Range of contacts

Year of survey

1993a 1997 1999a 1999b 2000ab 2000b 2000c 2001a 2001b 2002a 2002bc

0-4 15.7 8.7 5.7 6.4 9.0 10.8 7.3 8.5 10.2 10.3 7.8

5-9 15.5 19.9 14.8 12.1 15.6 18.1 18.9 14.0 12.5 17.9 17.7

10-19 23.7 27.8 22.3 28.1 28.2 30.5 28.4 25.7 23.7 26.0 27.3

20-49 24.3 23.8 27.9 28.1 30.3 23.0 27.5 30.1 30.7 24.9 25.4

50-99 9.6 11.1 14.9 9.6 9.5 9.6 10.1 12.4 11.9 10.2 10.8

100+ 11.4 8.9 14.4 15.8 7.3 8.2 7.9 9.3 11.0 10.8 11.2

Total 100.2 100.2 100.0 100.1 99.9 100.2 100.1 100.0 100.0 100.1 100.2

                       

Mean 3.31 3.35 3.75 3.70 3.38 3.26 3.38 3.52 3.55 3.39 3.47

S.D. 1.53 1.38 1.41 1.41 1.31 1.37 1.31 1.36 1.42 1.44 1.40

Skewness 0.14 0.22 -0.04 0.07 0.07 0.24 0.19 -0.01 -0.06 0.16 0.17

N 1,204 2,825 596 595 808 1,930 1,220 1,296 1,166 1,179 1,801

Range of contacts

  Total

Shanghai Wuhan Nanjing   3 cities HongKong

Taiwan97-02a

0-4 8.6 9.3 8.5   8.8 13.0 8.9

5-9 17.5 16.9 18.8   17.7 16.8 16.9

10-19 30.8 29.2 23.0   28.4 29.9 27.2

20-49 23.1 27.4 23.7   24.3 24.6 26.4

50-99 12.0 9.0 12.7   11.4 8.0 10.9

100+ 8.0 8.2 13.3   9.4 7.7 9.6

Total 100.0 100.0 100.0   100.0 100.0 99.9

               

Mean 3.36 3.34 3.53   3.40 3.21 3.42

S.D. 1.35 1.34 1.48   1.38 1.38 1.38

Skewness 0.19 0.17 0.10   0.17 0.21 0.13

N 1,012 503 496   2,011 1,027 14,620

Table 2. Network Measures by the Range of Daily Contacts: Name Generator and Position Generator (Taiwan, 1997)

Range of contacts

Name generator a   Position generator   Total

Affective Instru-mental

Combined

  Extensity/

Size

High c Low Range   N %

0-4 2.7 2.6 3.5   4.2 65.2 33.7 31.5   245 8.7

5-9 3.2 3.1 4.2   5.1 67.0 31.5 35.5   561 19.9

10-19 3.5 3.3 4.7   6.2 68.3 30.2 38.1   784 27.8

20-49 3.5 3.3 4.7   7.7 71.4 28.0 43.4   671 23.8

50-99 3.8 3.7 5.2   8.1 72.4 28.6 43.8   314 11.1

100+ 3.6 3.5 4.9   8.3 73.0 27.8 45.2   250 8.9

Total/ Means 3.4 3.3 4.6   6.6 69.5 29.8 39.7   2,825 100.2

Data

• Shianghai, Wuhan, Nanjin 1998

• (survey on urban communities)

• Hong Kong 2000

• (Hong Kong Social Trend Survey)

• Taiwan 1993-2002

• (Taiwan Social Change Survey,

• Taiwan Social Trend Survey)

Summary of findings