ABSTRACT

This study was to investigate the patterns of change over time in leisure activities and depressive levels in community-dwelling older adults. Gender, marital status, and economically active/inactive state were set as the conditional variables in analyzing the relationships between the activities and levels. The data based on the 6th (2016), 7th (2018), and 8th (2020) waves of the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging (KLoSA) were analyzed by applying the Latent Growth Modeling. The major findings of this study were as follows. First, the activities and levels of the older adults tended to increase linearly over time. Second, the relationships between the activities and levels were found significantly negative at the sixth wave of the KLoSA. Third, the marital status was not found as a significant factor to influence on either the activities or levels. Fourth, gender was not found as a significant factor to influence on them either. Fifth, the depressive levels of the older adults who were involved in employment were low for the three consecutive waves, whereas leisure activities of them increased over time. Based on the findings, the important functions of the leisure activities were discussed for the older adults, and some practical measures for their active participation in the activities were suggested at the same time.