社会调查研究方法 (15).pdfVIP

Ageing Society 29, 2009, 1141–1154. f 2009 Cambridge University Press 1141 doi:10.1017/S0144686 Printed in the United Kingdom Relationships between age and gender differentials in health among older people in China DEWEN WANG*#, JIANMIN ZHENG$, MICHIKO KUROSAWA# and YUTAKA INABA# ABSTRACT The objective of this paper is to specify the relationships between age and gender differentials in health among older people in China. The data were drawn from the 2002 Chinese Longitudinal Health Longevity Study (CLHLS), which included 15,789 respondents aged 65 or more years. The health indicators included the Activities of Daily Living (ADL) and Instrumental ADL scores, cognitive ability (using the Mini Mental State Examination), visual function, hearing or auditory function, number of natural teeth, self-reported health, and self-reported quality of life. The statistical significance of the age relationships was examined using Mann-Whitney U tests and Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients. The principal results were that above 65 years of age, gender differentials were observed in most of the health indicators at most ages, although self-rated quality of life was an exception. For most of the objective (observer-rated) health indicators, the gender differentials increased with greater age, but that for the number of natural teeth decreased with age. Gender differentials in the two subjective health measures had no sig- nificant relationship with age. It is concluded that older Chinese women have poorer health than men and are in many ways disadvantaged, and that the relative disadvantage increases with age. Chinese women tend to live longer and suffer ill-health more than men. KEY WORDS – older people, China, health indicator, age relationships, gender differentials, health differentials. Introduction While it is found worldwide that on average women live longe