Age moderates the social participation-mental health association differently in urban and rural areas

Objectives Recent studies suggest that the association between social participation and mental health may change with age, although the direction of this relationship is unclear. While some suggest that the mental health benefits of social participation decline with age, others argue they become more important in later life. In this paper, we suggest a context-dependent divergence in aging trajectories: whereas urban older adults continue to gain mental health benefits from social participation, their rural counterparts gradually stop deriving such benefits over time. Methods We drew on four waves of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS, 2011–2018; N = 16,233; 53,056 person-years) to examine how social participation shapes depressive symptoms among adults aged 45 and older. Growth curve models were employed to assess the age-related trajectories of the effects of social participation on depressive symptoms, and interaction terms were introduced to analyze urban-rural differences. Results A significant three-way interaction (Informal Social Participation × Rural × Age) revealed that the mental health benefits of informal social participation increased with age among urban older adults but gradually declined among their rural counterparts. This divergence became statistically significant at around age 60 and continued to widen thereafter, indicating a growing urban advantage in the protective effects of informal engagement over time. Discussion These findings suggest that the mental health benefits of social participation change with age in ways shaped by residential context, highlighting the need to consider how urban and rural environments differently influence aging trajectories.