Association Between Educational Attainment and Depressive Symptom Severity Among Young-Old Adults Aged 60–74 Years: The Mediating Role of Self-Reported Memory Function

Background: This study aimed to investigate the association between educational attainment and depressive symptoms among young-old adults aged 60–74 years, and to examine the mediating effect of self-reported memory function between them, so as to provide a reference for the early screening and intervention of depressive symptom severity in this population. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study, and data were derived from the 2022 China Family Panel Studies (CFPS). After data cleaning, 3666 valid samples were included. Depressive symptom severity was assessed using the 8-item Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D 8) (Cronbach’s α = 0.771, Guttman Split-Half Coefficient = 0.742), with a total score ≥ 9 defined as probable depression. Self-reported memory function was measured using a single item (scored 0–4), with higher scores indicating better perceived memory, and was treated as a continuous variable for analysis. Descriptive statistics and Pearson correlation analysis were performed using R software (version 4.2.3). The mediation effect was tested using the product-of-coefficients method combined with the bootstrap method (5000 resamples), supplemented by a quasi-Bayesian model and multiple sensitivity analyses (including outcome variable substitution and model diagnostic corrections) for robustness testing. Results: Among the study participants, the prevalence of probable depression was 25.18%. Correlation analyses showed that educational attainment was significantly negatively correlated with depressive symptom severity (r = −0.177, p < 0.001) and significantly positively correlated with self-reported memory function (r = 0.241, p < 0.001). Self-reported memory function was significantly negatively correlated with depressive symptom severity (r = −0.223, p < 0.001). After adjusting for age, gender, place of residence, subjective income, self-rated health, and chronic disease status, mediation analysis showed that the direct effect of educational attainment on depressive symptom severity was −0.297 (95% CI: −0.424 to −0.174), while the indirect effect via self-reported memory function was −0.109 (95% CI: −0.139 to −0.082). The direct and indirect effects accounted for 73.20% and 26.80% of the total effect, respectively; the results of the quasi-Bayesian analysis and multiple sensitivity analyses were consistent in direction, further validating the stability of this mediation effect. Conclusions: Among young-old adults aged 60–74 years, self-reported memory function plays a partial statistical mediating role in the association between educational attainment and depressive symptom severity. This suggests that strengthening attention to memory status and early screening among individuals with lower educational attainment may offer a potential intervention approach for alleviating depressive symptom severity in this population in the future.