Abstract
Cognitive decline in later life has drawn considerable attention in recent sociological and epidemiological research, and most attention goes to population in the Western, developed countries. Few research has examined the social determinants of cognitive decline in East Asian developing countries, especially China, whose elder population is projected to take a substantial stake in the world population in future 20 years. Aiming to bridge the gap in the literature, this study explores the effect of individual socioeconomic status and contextual social inequality on cognitive performance of the oldest-olds in China. This study is based on the Chinese Longitudinal Health Longevity Survey data collected in 2008 for 23 provinces. Multi-level modeling was employed to accommodate both individual-level and contextual-level variables, as well as cross-level interaction. Results show that cognitive performance of the oldest-olds in China is positively associated with level of education. The impact of individual occupation prestige and contextual social inequality are both not obvious. Rather, social inequality shows minor impact in cross-level interaction such that education exerts greater influence in province with greater level of social inequality. Results in this study are mainly exploratory so as to suggest future direction in understanding social determinants of health in East Asian context.