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.

中文翻译：

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守寡中的社会参与：来自 12 年小组的证据

目标 社会参与对老年人，尤其是寡妇的生活质量很重要。这是第一项使用丧亲前后的多个小组观察来测试老年寡妇的正式和非正式社会参与是否上升或下降的研究。本文还测试了经济和婚姻满意度、抑郁症和丈夫死前疾病对这些趋势的调节作用。方法 韩国老龄化纵向研究的七波被用来跟踪 4 种社会参与措施的变化——会见和联系孩子、会见朋友和参加正式的团体。一组已婚个体，以粗化的精确匹配加权，控制年龄和时间趋势。混合模型回归估计了守寡随时间的影响。结果所有措施的社会参与在丧亲前变化不大，丧亲后显着上升。然而，与孩子会面和联系的频率在丧亲后早期达到峰值和下降，而与朋友会面和参加团体则显示出延迟但持久的影响。关于调节者，经济和婚姻满意度与整体社会参与水平呈正相关，但与丧亲后的社会参与呈负相关。讨论 丧亲后增加的社会参与强调了寡妇的复原力和她们获得的社会支持。然而，时间上的差异表明，从长远来看，与孩子的接触逐渐被家庭外的关系所取代。