How does personal relative deprivation affect mental health among the older adults in China? Evidence from panel data analysis

Objective: The mental health has become an important public health issue in China. This study aimed to use panel data to explore how personal relative deprivation affects mental health among older adults in China. Methods: The panel data of this study was obtained from the 2011 and 2014 waves of Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS). Furthermore, we used a panel data model to investigate the effect of per-sonal relative deprivation on mental health among the older adults. Results: Results from the panel data model show that greater feelings of relative economic deprivation were associated with lower level of cognitive function (coefficient = -0.3706, p < 0.01). Relative economic status adversely affected the psychological health (coefficient = -0.3636, p < 0.001). Social participation, physical exercise, and smoking accounted for 3.13%, 1.43%, and 0.19% of the effect of relative economic status on cognitive function, respectively. The most important channel involving the effect of relative economic status on psychological health is social participation (1.62%), followed by physical exercise (0.80%) and smoking (0.14%). Conclusion: Our findings suggest that personal relative deprivation has negative effects on cognitive function and psychological health. Furthermore, the regression results also indicate that the negative health effect of personal relative deprivation shows significant age, gender, and urban-rural disparities. Moreover, there is evidence that social participation is an important transmission channel involving the effect of personal relative deprivation on mental health. Reducing personal relative deprivation can improve the mental health of the older adults.