The Impact of Religious Attendance on the Mortality Risk of China’s Oldest Old

The paper uses CLHLS data from 1998 to 2005, employing Cox hazard regression model to analyze the impact of religious attendance on the mortality risk of the oldest old, and to examines the roles of physical/mental health, healthy behaviors and socioeconomic supports in this relationship, in order to test four kinds of theoretical models in the western literature. The results show that religious attendance is correlated with mortality risk. However, the effects of other potential explanatory variables can somehow reduce the association. These findings suggest that religious attendance may represent a proxy for physical health, especially in the oldest old.