Latent Profile Analysis of Active Aging Based on Social Participation and Social Status

This study is grounded in a critical awareness of three key limitations: first, the paradigm of active aging tends to render invisible those older adults who are systematically excluded from opportunities to lead active lives as social agents; second, previous research has predominantly employed a variable-centered approach; and third, it has failed to integrate the behavioral and cognitive dimensions of active aging. Accordingly, this study aims to analyze the latent classes of active aging based on social participation, representing behavioral attributes, and social status, representing cognitive attributes. It further seeks to identify the characteristics of each class, determine their predictors, and examine the impact of each class on life satisfaction, thereby empirically illustrating cases of exclusion from active aging. Based on data from a social survey of 310 adults, a latent profile analysis identified two distinct classes of active aging: high participation/status and low participation/status. The low participation/status type was characterized by being female, having a lower subjective economic status, and reporting poorer subjective health. Younger age and lower subjective economic status significantly increased the likelihood of belonging to the low participation/status class, and membership in this class was associated with significantly lower life satisfaction.