The Influence Of Social Participation On Depression Among Widowed Elderly

China is now in a phase of rapid aging,and the number of widowed elderly is rapidly increasing,becoming an important group that cannot be ignored.The death of a spouse not only makes the elderly need more social and family support,but also their own behavioral choices directly affect their physical and mental health.In the context of "active aging",social participation,as one of the important ways to realize active aging,can help the bereaved elderly eliminate the mental health problems caused by marginalization and social isolation,and make them become an important force for social development.Based on the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study(CHARLS)2018 data,this study investigates the effects of different types of social participation on depression among the bereaved elderly and the underlying mechanisms from the perspective of comparing the bereaved elderly with the married elderly.In the empirical analysis section,baseline regressions were first conducted in subsamples and the Oaxaca-blinder model was used to explore the effects of different types of social participation on the differences in depression levels among the elderly.Then,the extent of the effect of social participation types on depression among different groups of older adults with different characteristics was explored on the basis of differentiating between urban and rural,male and female.Finally,the mediating effects of variables such as self-rated health and life satisfaction were considered to explain the pathways of social participation on depression among older adults.In addition,this paper uses instrumental variables,propensity score matching solution to alleviate the endogeneity problem,and replaces the explanatory variables with fixed-order variables to verify the robustness of the regression results.The main findings of this paper are as follows: 1.The social participation rate of the widowed elderly is relatively low,and the participation categories are single,with the participation rates ranked from highest to lowest as work-based,social,recreational and helping type.The social participation rate of the widowed elderly was higher compared to the spouse elderly.2.Social engagement significantly improves depression among the widowed elderly,with recreational,work-oriented and social type all having a significant effect.3.The contribution of changes in recreational and work-oriented social participation to the difference in depression levels of the widowed and spouse elderly was significant.4.The effect of the type of social participation on the depression of the widowed elderly had differences between gender and domiciles.Recreational type and social type had significant effects on women,while work-based type significantly improved the mental health of men.By urban and rural areas,recreation-based activities have a beneficial effect on the mental health of widowed older people in both urban and rural areas;social and work-oriented type can effectively improve the psychological health of rural bereaved elderly,but not significantly for urban bereaved elderly.5.Improved physiological health and increased life satisfaction are the intrinsic mechanisms of social participation to reduce the degree of depression of the elderly.Based on the above findings,this paper suggests improving social security policies such as pensions,improving laws and regulations on labor and employment of the elderly,promoting the construction of community leisure activity facilities,strengthening the propaganda and education of positive aging concept,establishing the incentive model of mutual elderly assistance,and optimizing the conditions of community medical services.