Married or Partnered Adults’ Self-Perceptions of Aging in Later Life: The Context of Gender

Abstract Marriage or other types of partnerships are consequential for health in later life, but its association to self-perceptions of aging remains a relatively unexplored area of research. This study used three waves of panel data from the Health and Retirement Study (N = 4,315) to examine how changes in the health status and relationship quality over time contribute to self-perceptions of aging for married/partnered men and women. Multilevel models showed that women demonstrated more positive self-perceptions of aging than men, but there was no gender difference in how self-perceptions of aging became more negative over time. The findings on the main and moderating effects of health and relationship quality give evidence that changes across time, as well as average differences in individual characteristics, may affect self-perceptions of married/partnered men and women differently. The context in which gender shapes key aspects of life contributes to self-perceptions of aging in later life.

The way adults perceive their aging process is an important predictor of later life outcomes, including mental and physical health.Despite the importance of living a socially active life in old age, the inter-connections of individuals' perceptions of aging with their social lives and behaviors are not well-understood.This symposium addresses questions of how the social environment and social behaviors are related to subjective aging perceptions, including subjective age and selfperceptions of aging.Two papers examine self-perceptions of aging in the context of couple relations.Mejía and colleagues focus on married older adults' shared beliefs about aging, showing that within older couples, beliefs about aging are shaped in part through partners' co-experience of each other's biological aging.Kim and colleagues also examine couples, finding evidence that changes across time, as well as average differences in individual characteristics, may affect selfperceptions of married/partnered men and women differently.The final two papers examine the interplay between chronological age and perceptions of aging.Weiss and Weiss examine the social conditions and consequences of subjective age across the life span in the work domain, demonstrating that feeling relatively older among young adults and younger among older adults predicts proactive behaviors such as speaking up.Cohn-Schwartz and colleagues investigate the bi-directional temporal associations of adults' self-perceptions of aging and the age composition of their social networks.The symposium concludes with summarizing remarks from the discussant who will suggest possible directions for future research on the social contexts of the perceived experience of aging.

THE LONGITUDINAL ASSOCIATIONS OF SELF-PERCEPTIONS OF AGING AND THE AGE COMPOSITION OF SOCIAL NETWORKS
Ella Cohn-Schwartz, 1 Markus Schafer, 2 and Liat Ayalon, 3 1.Ben Gurion University,Haifa,Israel,2. University of Toronto,Toronto,Ontario,Canada,Ramay Gan,HaMerkaz,Israel Relying on the age segregation theory (limited contact between the generations), this study examined the temporal associations between the age composition of one's social ties and one's self-perceptions of aging (SPA).Data came from the 2014 and 2017 waves of the German Ageing Survey (DEAS).Age composition of the network was assessed as the number of kin and non-kin in the social network who are either five years older or five years younger than the respondent.A latent change score model assessed the bidirectional associations.Adults who had younger social network members, both kin and non-kin, had better SPA three years later.A positive SPA at baseline also predicted a higher number of younger nonkin relationships over time.These results stress the role of SPA in adults' social network as well as the role of the age of social network members in shaping adults' SPA.

WHEN AND WHY DOES SUBJECTIVE AGE BOOST COMPETENCE AND PROACTIVE WORK BEHAVIOR?
David Weiss, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Sachsen, Germany Subjective age bias suggests that middle-aged and older adults feel relative younger, whereas adolescents and young adults often feel older than their chronological age.However, we still know very little about its social conditions and consequences across the life span particularly within the work domain.Across three studies (correlational, experimental, and field: Ns = 650, 16-85 years), we show that feeling older (among younger adults) and younger (among older adults) is triggered by undesirable age stereotypes concerning competence and status of young and later adulthood and desirable age stereotypes of midlife.We further demonstrate that feeling relatively older among young adults and younger among older adults increases individuals' self-perceived competence at work and predicts proactive behavior such as speaking up.We discuss subjective age bias as socially-mediated phenomenon and how it affects behavior at work across the life span.Marriage or other types of partnerships are consequential for health in later life, but its association to self-perceptions of aging remains a relatively unexplored area of research.This study used three waves of panel data from the Health and Retirement Study (N = 4,315) to examine how changes in the health status and relationship quality over time contribute to self-perceptions of aging for married/partnered men and women.Multilevel models showed that women demonstrated more positive self-perceptions of aging than men, but there was no gender difference in how selfperceptions of aging became more negative over time.The findings on the main and moderating effects of health and relationship quality give evidence that changes across time, as well as average differences in individual characteristics, may affect self-perceptions of married/partnered men and women differently.The context in which gender shapes key aspects of life contributes to self-perceptions of aging in later life.

SOCIAL PARTICIPATION, SOCIAL SUPPORT, AND SOCIAL POLICY AMONG OLDER ADULTS Chair: Linda Waite
The social world is closely linked to other dimensions of health, including physical health and illness, physical functioning, cognition and emotional well-being, and these links may change across generations and may depend on social and policy context.The papers in this symposium focus on these links.Carr examines the associations between productive engagement in later life and perceptions of social support and interactions with friends and family.She finds that volunteer engagement is associated with greater perceived social support and interaction with friends and family but not with support from spouse.Waite, Duvoisin and Kotwal measure changes in social participation between the Silent Generation cohort, born between1938 and1947, and the Baby Boom cohort, born from1948-1958.They find find that the gender differences shown in the Silent Generation cohort are reduced among those born during the Baby Boom.Azar examines the moderating role of social policy, particularly defamilization, on the link between loneliness and health, using data from30 European countries and the U.S. Choi compares marital and partnership status, social support and strain in Silent Generation vs. Baby Boom cohorts.Her results suggest that those born during the Baby Boom are embedded in looser social relationships compared to their older counterparts.Together, these papers point to the importance of considering various dimensions of social life, gender, and context, including historical time and the life cycle, in understanding how the social world acts to affect well-being.

COHORT DIFFERENCES IN SOCIAL PARTICIPATION IN THE NATIONAL SOCIAL LIFE, HEALTH, AND AGING PROJECT
Linda Waite, 1 Rebeccah Duvoisin, 2 and Ashwin Kotwal, 3 1.University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States, 2. NORC at the University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States, 3. University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California, United States Has American society become more socially disconnected as Robert Putnam argues in Bowling Alone?Claude Fischer disputes this contention with evidence that Americans remain about as connected to friends and family as in the past.We address this debate with data for older adults from the National Social Life, Health and Aging Study, collected in 2005, 2010, and 2015.We compare social participation as reported at ages 57 to 68 for members of the Silent Generation cohort vs the Baby Boom cohort.We find that the gender gap in social participation evident for the Silent Generation does not exist at all for younger Baby Boomers, only appearing after age 62.These same cohort differences appear for participation in religious services and organized groups.This suggest that the gendered separation of social roles that characterized older generations is becoming less pronounced, with implications for social support and social isolation.

SOCIAL PROCESSES IN LATE-LIFE SUICIDE Chair: Elizabeth Necka
Suicide is the tenth leading cause of death in the United States, and social isolation -either real or perceived -is one of the primary risk factors for a suicidal attempt (Calati et al.,2019).Late adulthood is characterized by both rapid increases in both social isolation (Cornwell,2011) and loneliness (i.e., perceived social isolation;Hawkley, Wroblewski, Kaiser, Luhmann, & Schumm,2019), which enhance risk of mental disorders (Santini et al.,2020), as well as by suicide rates that are higher than in any other age group (SAMSHA,2017).What are the mechanisms by which social isolation confers risk (and social connection confers resilience) to suicidal thoughts and behaviors in aging, and what promising interventions exist for addressing social impediments in older adulthood?What barriers exist to providing services to socially isolated older adults contemplating suicide, and what are the public health implications of social isolation and suicide in late life?This symposium will feature talks on the role of social motivation and empathy in the development of (or resilience to) suicidal ideation in older adults, on interventions that draw upon the Interpersonal Theory of Suicide and utilize social engagement and digital 'mHealth' services to reduce late-life social isolation, depression, and suicidal ideation, and on National Institute of Mental Health funding priorities and efforts to address suicide.After attending this session, participants will be able to articulate mechanisms by which social isolation confers risk for suicide in older adulthood and to identify opportunities and obstacles for effective intervention implementation.

THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF MENTAL HEALTH: RESEARCH AGENDA AND PRIORITIES IN GERIATRICS AND AGING Elizabeth Necka, National Institute of Mental Health, Rockville, Maryland, United States
The Geriatrics and Aging Processes Research Branch of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) supports research on the etiology, pathophysiology, and trajectory of late life mental disorders.The branch encourages research using neuroscience, cognitive and affective science, and social and behavioral science to translate basic and preclinical research to clinical research.The branch prioritizes research that investigates neuropsychiatric disorders of aging, how they interact with neurodevelopment/neurodegeneration, and how to assess, treat, and prevent them.Of particular interest is research on social isolation and suicide.Suicide prevention research is an urgent priority: NIMH's portfolio includes projects aimed at identifying those at risk for suicide, understanding causes of suicide risk, developing suicide prevention interventions, and testing the effectiveness of these interventions and services in real-world settings.In this talk, a NIMH program official will discuss the NIMH research agenda in the domain of late-life mental illness, social isolation, and suicide.

MARRIED OR PARTNERED ADULTS' SELF-PERCEPTIONS OF AGING IN LATER LIFE: THE CONTEXT OF GENDER Yijung
Shannon Mejia, 1 Hannah Giasson, 2 Jacqui Smith,3and Rich Gonzalez, 3 1.University of Illinois at Champaign, Illinois, United States, 2. Stanford  University, Stanford, California, United States, 3. University  of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United StatesBeliefs about aging are grounded in social experience.This study considers the extent to which married older adults' shared beliefs about aging and markers of aging maintain a concurrent and enduring association with their partners' beliefs and markers of aging.Data from the 2010/2012 and 2014/2016 waves of the Health and Retirement Study provided measures of husbands' and wives' (3,779 couples) positive and negative beliefs about aging and internal (Cystatin C) and external (grip strength) markers of aging.Latent dyadic models parsed beliefs and markers into partners' individual and shared variance.Longitudinal analysis showed concurrent associations between shared beliefs and markers of aging to be stable over four years.Meanwhile, the enduring processes that connect beliefs and markers over time were best characterized as bidirectional.The study provides evidence that, within older couples, beliefs about aging are shaped in part through partners' co-experience of each other's biological aging.Kim, 1 Kyungmin Kim, 1 Shevaun Neupert, 2 and Kathrin Boerner, 1 1.University of MassachusettsBoston,  Boston, Massachusetts, United States, 2. North Carolina  State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, United States