title: Aging well socially through engagement with life: adapting Rowe and Kahn's model of successful aging to Chinese cultural context.
abstract: Although aging well socially (engagement with life) is as important as aging well personally (illness avoidance and functioning) (Rowe & Kahn, 1998), it has received less research attention. A caring (CE) and a productive (PE) form of engagement were derived from an analysis of Chinese cultural meanings of engagement, and combined with illness avoidance and functioning to form a 4-factor model. Confirmatory factor analysis based on 2970 Hong Kong Chinese (40 to 74 years) showed a good model fit that was replicated a year later with 2120 of the original sample. Further analysis led to a more parsimonious model where illness avoidance and functioning converged into a single second-order factor whereas CE and PE remained as distinct first-order factors. The results supported the differentiation of Rowe and Kahn's engagement with life component into caring and productive engagements.
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Social Studies, City University of Hong Kong, China. sikhung.ng@cityu.edu.hk
authors.forename: Sik Hung
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Ng
authors.forename: Chau-Kiu
authors.initials: CK
authors.lastname: Cheung
authors.forename: Alice M L
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Chong
authors.forename: Jean
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Woo
authors.forename: Alex Y H
authors.initials: AY
authors.lastname: Kwan
authors.forename: Stephanie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lai
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D044466:Asian People / Q000523:psychology*; D003469:Culture; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D012919:Social Behavior; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires