Unveiling the English proficiency of Chinese older adults through a national survey.

As population aging intensifies, calls for active and healthy-aging approaches have amplified. Concurrently, English learning has gained popularity as a global trend, emerging as a fashionable pursuit among Chinese older adults as well. However, previous research has paid scant attention to examining English language learning in older populations. To address this chasm, this exploratory article used a nationally representative sample of 4,688 Chinese older adults from the 2018 Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) to delineate the contour of the relationship between English proficiency and related factors among older adults. Descriptive data revealed generally low levels of English proficiency among older adults in China. Subsequent multiple regression analysis and dominance analysis both confirmed that personal education level (<italic>β</italic> = .218, <italic>d</italic> <italic>your highest education level</italic> = .064, <italic>p</italic> < .0001), internet usage frequency (<italic>β = </italic>.116, <italic>d</italic> <italic>the frequency of internet usage</italic> = .0346, <italic>p</italic> < .0001) learning frequency (<italic>β</italic> = .088, <italic>d</italic> <italic>the frequency of learning</italic> = .0288, <italic>p</italic> < .0001) and household registration (<italic>β = </italic>.063, d <italic>household registration</italic> = .0233, <italic>p</italic> < .0001) constituted significant predictive factors influencing older adults’ English proficiency (the above variable order was ranked as per relative importance derived from dominance analysis in descending order). Finally, the authors proposed recommendations emphasizing strengthened lifelong education for older adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]