Person–environment fit in aging in place: A digital support layer and inequalities in environmental satisfaction among urban empty-nest older adults in China

Population aging and increasing intergenerational residential separation have made aging in place increasingly dependent on how older adults perceive the fit between themselves and their everyday living environments. Drawing on person–environment fit theory, this study situates smart technology within the broader environmental system and defines it as a distinct, independently measurable digital support layer. Using an exploratory sequential mixed-methods design, we examined environmental satisfaction among urban empty-nest older adults in China and identified social, functional, and contextual factors associated with inequalities in aging-in-place experiences. In Phase 1, constructivist grounded theory was used to analyze semi-structured interviews with 30 older adults from 15 highly aged communities in five high-density cities, yielding 95 initial concepts, nine axial categories, and four core dimensions. In Phase 2, a multidimensional satisfaction scale was developed from these findings and administered to 1510 urban empty-nest older adults. The framework comprised the physical home environment, community public environment, social support and psychological well-being, and age-friendly smart technology. The four-factor model showed good reliability and model fit (Cronbach's α = 0.912; CFI = 0.992; TLI = 0.992; SRMR = 0.022; RMSEA = 0.006). Satisfaction was highest for social support and psychological well-being and lowest for the community public environment, indicating that accessibility of public spaces, service provision, and community governance were comparatively less favorably rated and warrant further attention. Regression analyses showed that marital status, residential distance from adult children, income, functional ability, age, community age, and management model were each independently associated with differences in satisfaction. Interaction analyses further showed that, in older communities, the gap in community public environment satisfaction was more pronounced among participants with mild functional limitations, whereas higher social support was associated with a narrower age-related gap in smart technology satisfaction among adults aged 90 years or older. These findings indicate that satisfaction with aging in place reflects the joint associations of individual capacities, environmental conditions, and social resources. Regression analyses also revealed an exploratory pattern of small magnitude: compared with fully independent participants, those with mild functional impairment reported lower community public environment satisfaction (β = −0.127, Cohen's f 2 = 0.02). These findings conceptualize digitally supported aging in place as a person–environment fit process and explicitly define technology as a digital support layer embedded within the physical and social environment. This layer functions both as a resource and as a source of demands: monitoring, reminder, interaction, and remote-care functions connect individual capacities with environmental resources, whereas requirements related to operation, comprehension, trust, and maintenance define the specific conditions of technology fit.