Kinship bereavement and psychological well-being of U.S. Chinese older women and men

ABSTRACT

This study examined the relationship of kinship bereavement with the psychological well-being of Chinese American older women and men. Data from the Population Study of ChINese Elderly were used. Respondents were asked if their spouse, children/grandchildren, siblings, close relatives, and friends had died. Widowhood was associated with more loneliness for both genders. For women, close relative/friend loss was associated with more stress, and children/grandchildren loss was linked to stronger anxiety. Only coefficients for close relative in the stress model were significantly different between genders. The variation in patterns of kinship bereavement may be attributed to Chinese cultural attitudes toward death.

KEYWORDS:

• Kinship bereavement
• Chinese American older adults
• psychological well-being

Disclosure statement

The authors declare they have no conflicts of interest.

Notes

1. Adopted children were included in the PINE questionnaire, but the majority of respondents did not have adopted children, leading to a large amount of missing values in the item asking if any adopted children had passed away. To avoid the model failing from lack of convergence, we excluded the adopted children item in this study.

2. There were three levels in each of the first four items of family support scale (values = 1, 2, 3). The fifth item asked the number of family members/relatives the respondent felt close to, ranging from 0 = none, 1 = 1, 2 = 2 ~ 3, 3 = 4 ~ 9. 4 = 10 ~ 20, and 5 = 20 or more.