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BMC Psychiatry
Published in: BMC Psychiatry 1/2020

Open Access 01-12-2020 | Mood Disorders | Research article

Gender differential impact of bereavement on health outcomes: evidence from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, 2011–2015

Authors: Zhuo Chen, Jiahui Ying, Justin Ingles, Donglan Zhang, Janani Rajbhandari-Thapa, Ruoxi Wang, Kerstin Gerst Emerson, Zhanchun Feng

Published in: BMC Psychiatry | Issue 1/2020

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Abstract

Background

Bereavement is the experience of an individual following the death of a person of significance to the individual, most often referring to the spouse. Increased morbidity, health care utilization, and mortality are known to be associated with bereavement. Given China’s growing population of older adults, there is a critical need to assess the health consequences of bereavement.

Method

We use data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study to examine the impact of bereavement on mental health and quality of life among a sample of mid- and older-aged adults. We use propensity score matching to construct a matching sample and difference-in-differences method to estimate the impact of bereavement on mental health and self-assessed health.

Results

We find bereavement is associated with increased depression symptoms among women (1.542 point or 0.229 standard deviations of Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D) 10 score) but not consistently for men over time. No statistically significant effect of bereavement on self-assessed health is found.

Conclusions

Our results show a harmful impact of bereavement on mental health among older women in China and point to the need for a comprehensive policy on survivor benefits in China, particularly for rural older women.
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Metadata
Title
Gender differential impact of bereavement on health outcomes: evidence from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, 2011–2015
Authors
Zhuo Chen
Jiahui Ying
Justin Ingles
Donglan Zhang
Janani Rajbhandari-Thapa
Ruoxi Wang
Kerstin Gerst Emerson
Zhanchun Feng
Publication date
01-12-2020
Publisher
BioMed Central
Published in
BMC Psychiatry / Issue 1/2020
Electronic ISSN: 1471-244X
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-020-02916-2

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