Despite a large body of research on the effects of widowhood on health, little is known about whether spousal loss is related to functional impairment in widowed persons. This study examines the trajectories of functional impairment (sensory and masticatory functions) before and after spousal loss. This study also investigates whether the temporal changes in functional impairment of widowed people are gendered. Using data from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing over seven waves (42,967 person-observations), this study estimated fixed effects regression models to account for unobserved individual-level heterogeneity. Gender-stratified fixed effects regression models were used to determine whether changes in functional impairment associated with spousal loss differ by gender. The results of this study indicated that the vision of widowed people began to decrease within the first year following spousal loss and persisted through the fourth and subsequent years. By contrast, mastication deterioration occurred only among widowers. Masticatory impairment began during the first year of spousal loss and lasted the entire survey period. No statistically significant reduction in hearing loss was found for both widowers and widows. The results of this study suggest that spousal loss has a long-term effect on functional impairment, particularly in vision and masticatory functions. This study also documents gender heterogeneity in the trajectories of functional impairment before and after spousal loss. Vision impairment was found to be universal among widowers and widows, whereas masticatory impairment was significant only among widows. To address the physical and psychological vulnerability of widowed people, policies should be developed early in the process of adjusting to widowhood.

尽管针对丧偶对健康的影响进行了大量研究，但对于丧偶是否与丧偶者的功能障碍有关，人们知之甚少。本研究探讨了失去配偶前后功能障碍（感觉和咀嚼功能）的轨迹。这项研究还调查了丧偶者功能障碍的时间变化是否与性别有关。本研究利用韩国七波老龄化纵向研究（42,967 人观察）的数据，估计了固定效应回归模型，以解释未观察到的个体层面的异质性。使用性别分层固定效应回归模型来确定与失去配偶相关的功能障碍的变化是否因性别而异。这项研究的结果表明，丧偶者的视力在失去配偶后的第一年内开始下降，并持续到第四年及随后的几年。相比之下，咀嚼能力下降只发生在鳏夫身上。咀嚼功能障碍始于失去配偶的第一年，并持续整个调查期间。鳏夫和寡妇的听力损失没有统计学上显着的减少。这项研究的结果表明，失去配偶会对功能障碍产生长期影响，特别是视力和咀嚼功能。这项研究还记录了失去配偶前后功能障碍轨迹的性别异质性。视力障碍在鳏夫和寡妇中普遍存在，而咀嚼障碍仅在寡妇中很显着。为了解决丧偶者的身心脆弱性，应在丧偶调整过程中尽早制定政策。