Table 2.

Health Outcomes Before and After widowhood

Variable	Mean-Before Widowhood	Mean-After Widowhood	Difference
A. Health Variables
CESD scores	9.571	10.775	−1.204***
Displaying elevated depressive symptoms	0.436	0.485	−0.049
Needing help in ADL or IADL (=1)	0.204	0.275	−0.071***
Having body pain (=1)	0.366	0.362	0.004
Self-reported health being good, very good or excellent (=1)	0.227	0.215	0.012
Number of chronic diseases	0.746	0.775	−0.029
Hours of sleep	6.131	5.974	0.157
Episodic memory scores	3.145	2.923	0.222***
B. Channel Variables
Working (=1)	0.468	0.374	0.094***
Caring for spouse (=1)	0.112	0.009	0.103***
Caring for grandchildren (=1)	0.170	0.295	−0.125***
Ln hours of caring for grandchildren	1.208	2.044	−0.836***
Received transfers from children (=1)	0.646	0.770	−0.124***
Ln transfers from children	4.484	5.325	−0.841***
Ln per capita consumption	9.613	9.575	0.038
Living with children (=1)	0.477	0.451	0.026
Having social interactions (=1)	0.349	0.435	−0.086***

Note: Standard deviations in brackets

^***p<0.001

^**p<0.01

^*p<0.05

Source: CHARLS 2011, 2013 and 2015 waves.