Living alone and depressive symptoms among older Japanese: Do urbanization and time period matter?


 
 
 Previous research has suggested cross-national differences in the association between living alone and well-being among older adults. This study examined whether the association varied across social contexts within the country, Japan, in terms of varying degree of urbanization and differential time periods.
 
 
 
 Data were obtained from a 9-wave nationwide longitudinal survey with a probability sample of Japanese adults aged 60 years and over. Respondents belonged to one of three periods (around 1990, 2000 and 2015) according to the year they commenced participation. As many as 4,655 individuals in 575 municipalities provided 9,016 observation sets of two consecutive waves (t-1 and t). Within a framework of the Generalized Linear Model, depressive symptoms at t were predicted based on changes in living arrangements from t-1 to t and their cross-level interactions with gender, level of urbanization, and time period, controlling for various covariates at t-1.
 
 
 
 In general, older adults living alone continuously as well as those who started living alone between the waves showed more depressive symptoms than those co-residing with someone continuously. However, this tendency was more prominent in rural residents than their urban counterparts, especially for men. Moreover, the effect of continuously living alone on depressive symptoms became smaller in Period 2015 than Period 1990, because of the increase in depressiveness in co-resident older adults.
 
 
 
 Our findings indicate that living alone has a differential impact on older adults’ well-being depending on social context where residents’ preferences for living arrangements and availability of formal services could vary.
