Aging in place: mechanisms linking fishing village environment to place attachment among older adults in Lian-yungang, China

Place attachment, a sustainable psychological construct encompassing human-place connections, is a key determinant in developing age-friendly communities. However, existing research has insufficiently explored how fishing village environments shape older adults’ place attachment and lacks in-depth discussion from a gender perspective. Using 1213 valid samples from the “Fishing Village Environment and Elderly Well-being Survey,” this study uses a structural equation model to develop a framework of “Environmental Characteristics → Behavioral Patterns → Place Attachment” while systematically examining gender’s group-moderating role. The study finds the fishing village environment is significantly positively correlated with older adults’ place attachment, with life satisfaction and intergenerational interaction acting as mediators, life satisfaction has a more prominent mediating effect. This correlation is stronger for elderly women than for elderly men. Among different gender groups, elderly men’s place attachment is more significantly mediated by life satisfaction, while elderly women’s is more prominently mediated by intergenerational interaction. These results advance environmental gerontology by mapping gendered pathways in person-place bonding dynamics, offering empirically grounded insights for formulating gender-responsive aging-in-place policies in coastal communities.