Social Participation in Widowhood: Evidence From a 12-Year Panel

Objectives: Social participation is important to the quality of life of older adults, especially widows. This is the first study to test whether older widows' formal and informal social participation rises or declines using multiple panel observations pre- and postbereavement. This article also tests the moderating effects of economic and marital satisfaction, depression, and husband's illness before death on these trends.

Methods: Seven waves of the Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing are used to track changes in 4 measures of social participation-meeting and contacting a child, meeting friends, and attending a formal group. A comparison group of married individuals, weighted with coarsened exact matching, controls for age and time trends. Mixed model regressions estimate the effects of widowhood over time.

Results: Social participation shows little change before bereavement and rises significantly after bereavement for all measures. However, frequencies of meeting and contacting a child peak and decline early postbereavement, while meeting friends and attending a group show delayed but long-lasting effects. With regard to moderators, economic and marital satisfaction are positively associated with overall social participation levels but negatively associated with social participation postbereavement.

Discussion: Increased social participation after bereavement underscores the resilience of widows and the social support they receive. However, differences in timing suggest that contact with children is gradually substituted with extrafamilial relationships in the long run. The negative moderating roles of economic and marital satisfaction point to a paradox where seemingly well-off individuals may be more vulnerable to widowhood.