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. 2025 Aug 26;25:662. doi: 10.1186/s12877-025-06337-2

Table 1.

Characteristics of the study participants

CHARLS HRS ELSA
digital inclusion digital exclusion digital inclusion digital exclusion digital inclusion digital exclusion
Total n (observations) 976(3.8%) 24,706(96.20%) 18,926(47.87%) 20,610(52.13%) 14,646(66.46%) 7392(33.54%)
Age 65.76 ± 5.15 68.38 ± 6.59 70.01 ± 7.35 74.73 ± 8.62 69.33 ± 6.57 75.23 ± 7.88
Gender
 Male 361 (36.99%) 12,501 (50.60%) 10,923 (57.71%) 12,203 (59.21%) 7701 (52.58%) 4583 (62.00%)
 Female 615 (63.01%) 12,205 (49.40%) 8003 (42.29%) 8407 (40.79%) 6945 (47.42%) 2809 (38.00%)
Education
 Less than lower secondary education 524 (53.69%) 23,003 (93.11%) 711 (3.76%) 6236 (30.26%) 2366 (16.15%) 4104 (55.52%)
 Upper secondary & vocational training 319 (32.68%) 1384 (5.60%) 11,115 (58.73%) 12,369 (60.01%) 8315 (56.77%) 2935 (39.71%)
 Tertiary education 133 (13.63%) 319 (1.29%) 7100 (37.51%) 2005 (9.73%) 3965 (27.07%) 353 (4.78%)
Marital/partnered status
 Unmarried/Divorced/widowed/others 104 (10.66%) 5078 (20.55%) 6167 (32.58%) 10,056 (48.79%) 4351 (29.71%) 3372 (45.62%)
 Married/with a partner 872 (89.34%) 19,628 (79.45%) 12,759 (67.42%) 10,554 (51.21%) 10,295 (70.29%) 4020 (54.38%)
Employment status
 No 681 (69.77%) 11,734 (47.49%) 12,292 (64.95%) 17,222 (83.56%) 11,096 (75.76%) 6761 (91.46%)
 Yes 295 (30.23%) 12,972 (52.51%) 6634 (35.05%) 3388 (16.44%) 3550 (24.24%) 631 (8.54%)
Cohabitation with children
 No 623 (63.83%) 13,953 (56.48%) 10,052 (53.11%) 7531 (36.54%) 12,126 (82.79%) 6262 (84.71%)
 Yes 353 (36.17%) 10,753 (43.52%) 8874 (46.89%) 13,079 (63.46%) 2520 (17.21%) 1130 (15.29%)
Self-rated health
 health 315 (32.27%) 5023 (20.33%) 9391 (49.62%) 5856 (28.41%) 6768 (46.21%) 1935 (26.18%)
 ill-health 661 (67.73%) 19,683 (79.67%) 9535 (50.38%) 14,754 (71.59%) 7878 (53.79%) 5457 (73.82%)
Income
 low 66 (6.76%) 8492 (34.37%) 3228 (17.06%) 9947 (48.26%) 3621 (24.72%) 3724 (50.38%)
 medium 190 (19.47%) 8338 (33.75%) 6119 (32.33%) 7061 (34.26%) 4822 (32.92%) 2525 (34.16%)
 high 720 (73.77%) 7876 (31.88%) 9579 (50.61%) 3602 (17.48%) 6203 (42.35%) 1143 (15.46%)
loneliness
 No 794 (81.35%) 16,946 (68.59%) 14,955 (79.02%) 14,700 (71.32%) 12,315 (84.08%) 5501 (74.42%)
 Yes 182 (18.65%) 7760 (31.41%) 3971 (20.98%) 5910 (28.68%) 2331 (15.92%) 1891 (25.58%)

CHARLS China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, HRS Health and Retirement Study,ELSA English Longitudinal Study of Ageing

Continuous variables were expressed as mean±standard deviation (SD) in case of normal distribution and categorical variables are presented as counts (percentages)

Model 3: adjust for Age; Gender; Education; marital/partnered status; employment status; cohabitation with children; Self-rated health; Income