The effects of sociodemographic characteristics on Chinese elders’ perception of the image of ageing

Abstract

A positive image of elderly people is found to be contributive to successful ageing. This paper reports a study that aims at revising and validating Image of Ageing Scale in a modern Chinese context and finding out how socio-demographic factors have impacted the latter's perception of the image of ageing. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the five-factor model suggested from exploratory factor analysis which produced good psychometric properties. Based on the two-cluster solution from the two-step cluster analysis on the image of ageing, results of both the Chi-square and the one-way ANOVA tests confirmed that age, residence location, marital status, working status, living arrangement, neighborhood relationships, illness and daily activity were significant predictors of elders' image of ageing. Logistic results further indicated that some predictors were not statistically significant in the multivariate analysis, whilst being urban, lonely, suffering from severe chronic illnesses, and showing little interests in daily activities, were identified as potent factors resulting in a negative image of ageing. Other than suggesting the Revised Chinese Version of the Image of Ageing Scale (IAS-C) could be used in a Chinese society, our findings also led to a number of recommendations to promoting a positive image among the Chinese elderly.