Status and Cognitive Function Among Older Chinese Adults: Does Support from Friends Matter?

Objectives: This study examined whether older Chinese adults with different types of status (government household registration system) exhibited different cognitive outcomes and whether receiving support from friends, an under-appreciated resource, helped mitigate the negative impacts of agricultural status on cognitive health disparities.

Methods: Using nationally representative data from the , this study tested these relationships with well-validated measures.

Results: Our results showed that older Chinese adults with agricultural were more likely to have worse cognitive function than those with non-agricultural . Further, friend support characteristics moderated the association between status and cognitive function, whereby having better friend support was related to a weaker negative effect of agricultural hukou status on cognitive function.

Discussion: The findings suggested that agricultural status reflects the effects of accumulated disadvantage across the life course with negative consequences for late-life cognition. The cognitive health disparities between agricultural and non-agricultural residents may be reduced in the context of a higher level of friend support, supporting a stress buffering hypothesis.