Healthy,Wealthy, Wise,and Happy? Assessing Age Differences in Evaluative and Emotional Well-Being Among Mature Adults from Five Low- and Middle-Income Countries

This study assesses the relationship between age and two dimensions of subjective well-being—evaluative and emotional—among mature adults from five low-and middle-income countries. We use data from the World Health Organization’s Study on Global AGEing and Adult Health to contrast the associations of age with subjective well-being when controlling only for gender with the corresponding partial associations when including a richer set of covariates. Adjusting only for gender, we find negative associations of age with evaluative well-being, while the corresponding age gradients for emotional well-being are relatively flat. By contrast, adjusting for further socio-demographic factors results in positive associations of age with both evaluative and emotional well-being. Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions allow us to explore the roles of two factors to account for any unadjusted age differences in subjective well-being: age-group differences in individual characteristics and life circumstances, and age-specific associations of individual characteristics and life circumstances with subjective well-being. While adverse circumstances such as poor health and low income contribute to lower levels of evaluative well-being among older adults, age per se is—ceteris paribus—positively associated with subjective well-being. Even in poorer countries, older age does not need to be a time of low subjective well-being. Policies aimed at preserving income and limiting or compensating old-age disability appear to be key for maintaining subjective well-being among older adults.

     

Neighborhood Characteristics and Older Adults’ Well-Being: The Roles of Sense of Community and Personal Resilience

The ecological model stresses the importance of the neighborhood context to aging successfully. This cross-sectional study aimed to examine the associations between neighborhood characteristics (public space, senior population density, and senior service) and the well-being of older adults, with sense of community as a potential mediator and personal resilience as a potential moderator. The sample consisted of 628 individuals (aged 60–97 years) recruited from 32 neighborhoods in Beijing, China. They completed measures of resilience, sense of community, and well-being. Neighborhood characteristics, including per capita public space, senior population density, and senior services, were obtained from neighborhood committees. We used hierarchical linear modeling to analyze the individual data from participants’ self-reported measures and objective data regarding neighborhoods. The results showed that: (a) public space, senior population density, and senior services were positively associated with the well-being of older adults; (b) sense of community mediated the above associations; (c) the associations between neighborhood characteristics—such as per capita public space, senior services, and well-being—were strengthened by personal resilience. This study highlighted the importance of neighborhoods to older adult’s well-being, including objective characteristics and a subjective sense of community. Besides personal strength, enhancing neighborhood resources is recommended to promote the well-being of elderly people.     

A Multilevel Analysis of the Compositional and Contextual Association of Social Capital and Subjective Well-Being in Seoul, South Korea

The purpose of this study is to examine the association between social capital and subjective well-being (life satisfaction) by using multilevel analysis considering both individual and area-level social capital while adjusting for various control variables at multiple-levels in Seoul, South Korea. The data was from the 2010 (Wave 2) Seoul Welfare Panel Study, conducted by Seoul Welfare Foundation. The final sample for this study consisted of 5,934 individuals aged 18 years or older in 2,847 households within 25 administrative areas. Three-level multilevel linear regression analyses, with random intercept models, were applied. Our results provide evidence that various dimensions of social capital both at the individual and area-level are positively associated with subjective life satisfaction, even after controlling for various factors at the individual, household, and area-levels. All of individual-level social capital variables including organizational participation, perceived helpfulness, trust in authorities were positively associated with subjective life satisfaction. Except for trust in authority, area-level organizational participation and perceived helpfulness were positively associated with subjective life satisfaction. These results suggest that decision makers should consider both individual and area-level social capital targeting to enhance one’s well-being.     

Life Domain Satisfactions as Predictors of Overall Life Satisfaction Among Workers: Evidence from Chile

This article examines the subjective antecedents of life satisfaction of workers. Adopting a ‘bottom-up’ perspective, we assessed the unique influence that satisfaction with multiple life domains have on evaluative judgments of overall life satisfaction. Based on a nationwide sample of 530 Chilean workers, we simultaneously tested the effects of seven life domain satisfactions that have been consistently included in extant models of life satisfaction and subjective well-being. These were satisfaction with health, financial situation, social relationships, one’s self-worth, leisure-time, family, and work. Having controlled for age and gender, results showed that satisfaction with one’s financial situation was the dominant predictor of overall life satisfaction of workers, with a weight of .36. Satisfaction with family, work, and health had effects of .25, .14, and .14, respectively. Interestingly, satisfaction with one’s self-worth, leisure-time, and social relationships did not have statistically significant effects on life satisfaction, although the first two showed t values near the critical value.     

The Relationship Between Serious Leisure Characteristics and Subjective Well-Being of Older Adult Volunteers: The Moderating Effect of Spousal Support

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between serious leisure characteristics and subjective well-being as well as clarify the moderating effect of spousal support in their relationships. A total of 264 valid questionnaires were collected from a sample of older adult volunteers in Taiwan. Structural equation modeling was used to estimate a model linking serious leisure, spousal support to subjective wellbeing. As expected, the results show that older adult volunteers having greater serious leisure characteristics lead to a high level of subjective well-being. The findings further revealed that spousal support moderated the effect of serious leisure characteristics on subjective well-being. This indicates that the higher the level of spousal support, the larger is the likelihood that serious leisure will lead to greater subjective well-being. The results are suggested to be useful references for the older adult volunteers while improving spousal support, in order to increase the level of well-being.     

Serious Leisure,Motivation to Volunteer and Subjective Well-Being of Volunteers in Recreational Events

In this paper, we examined the relationships between motivation to volunteer, serious leisure, and the subjective well-being of volunteers at the 2010 Taipei International Flora Exposition. This study used convenience sampling to recruit a total of 1,094 volunteers. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were conducted for data analysis. The results of this study revealed that serious leisure positively associated with both motivation to volunteer and volunteers’ subjective well-being, while the association between motivation to volunteer and subjective well-being, at a level of 0.5, was not significant. These results suggest that greater attention in future research should be paid to the relationship between motivation to volunteer and volunteers’ subjective well-being, with a focus placed on implications for volunteers’ subjective well-being.     

Parenthood, Marital Status, and Well-Being in Later Life: Evidence from SHARE

Using pooled cross-sectional data from the first two waves of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, we address the question of whether and how parenthood and marital status are associated with various dimensions of elders’ well-being, which we define by elements of the individual’s economic situation, psychological well-being, and social connectedness. The results of our multivariate analysis suggest that childless individuals do not generally fare worse than parents in terms of their economic, psychological, or social well-being. Although there is some indication for a ‘protective effect’ of marriage, having a partner does not per se contribute to greater psychological well-being: only those reporting satisfaction with the extent of reciprocity in their relationship report lower numbers of depression symptoms than their unmarried counterparts. We observe no systematic associations between parenthood (marriage, respectively) and individuals’ propensity to participate in social activities. These findings are fairly stable, that is, they hold for both men and women as well as across various cohorts, and they do not vary systematically between countries.     

Time use and leisure: Subjective and objective aspects

This paper utilizes data from the 1981 Canadian Time Use Pilot Study and from a small Halifax time-budget study to look at subjective and contextual dimensions of leisure for women and men. The Canadian study (n=2685) had information on the time spent in daily activities as well as on the settings and social contexts of those activities. The Halifax study included similar time-budget information on 60 married couples, but also incorporated subjective ratings of all diary events in terms of perceived work or leisure. Using subjective weightings from the Halifax study, estimates of subjective leisure were made for different categories of daily activity and for different Canadian population subgroups. Hypercodes were used to look at the effect of social roles on leisure time, and the AID procedure was used to analyze the contextual dimensions of leisure for men and women. The results show that objective activity and well as subjective leisure vary by population subgroup. Constraints to leisure include being female, being employed, having children, and, to some degree, being married. Of the contextual dimensions, subjective leisure was shown to be influenced primarily by type of objective activity. Location, time of day and day of the week also influenced leisure designations, but to a lesser extent. This study suggests the potential usefulness of subjective weightings of activities in order to gain a greater understanding of leisure patterns and participation.     

Is it Pleasure or Health from Leisure that We Benefit from Most? An Analysis of Well-Being Alternatives and Implications for Policy

International policy now constantly advocates a need for populations to engage in more physical activity to promote health and to reduce society’s health care costs. Such policy has developed guidelines on recommended levels and intensity of physical activity and implicitly equates health with well-being. It is assumed that individual, and hence social welfare will be enhanced if the activity guidelines are met. This paper challenges that claim and raises questions for public policy priorities. Using an instrumental variable analysis to value the well-being from active leisure, it is shown that the well-being experienced from active leisure that is not of a recommended intensity to generate health benefits, perhaps due to its social, recreational or fun purpose, has a higher value of well-being than active leisure that does meet the guidelines. This suggests rethinking the motivation and foundation of existing policy and perhaps a realignment of priorities towards activity that has a greater contribution to social welfare through its intrinsic fun and possibly social interaction.     

Ageing, Leisure, and Social Connectedness: How could Leisure Help Reduce Social Isolation of Older People?

This study investigates the relation between leisure activities and the social status of the elderly based on a heterogeneous sample of the Dutch population. Close relationships are also analyzed to identify which people could serve as successful stimulators of leisure participation. The social profile confirms that older people have fewer social contacts and often feel lonely. This study shows that leisure activities explain a significant part of older people’s social connectedness. Voluntary work, cultural activities, holiday, sports, reading books, hobbies and shopping are found to be successful predictors for social connectedness of older people. Watching TV, listening to the radio, and spending time behind the computer (passive activities) were not associated with social connectedness. Friends correlate positively to participation in leisure activities. Partners play a role in participation in cultural activities and sports; parents play a role in participation in voluntary work and holidays; siblings play a role in voluntary work and sports; and children play a role in cultural activities, reading books, and shopping. Local communities can use these close relationships and develop special programs to increase social connectedness and hence improve quality of life for older adults.     

Impact of Social Changes and Birth Cohort on Subjective Well-Being in Chinese Older Adults: A Cross-Temporal Meta-analysis, 1990–2010

Over the past several decades, the proportion of older adults in the Chinese population has steadily increased during a period of substantial social change; the effect of these changes on older adults warrants examination. The present study explored changes in subjective well-being (SWB) in older adults by birth cohort and the social factors influential in these changes. We performed a cross-temporal meta-analysis using data from 20,713 adults over 60 years of age; data were obtained from 61 studies that used the Memorial University of Newfoundland Scale of Happiness. The dynamics of SWB in older adults were evaluated as a function of time. The mean SWB score decreased by 4.98 over the measured period, indicating a decrease of .52 standard deviations between 1990 and 2010. In addition, SWB in older adults was significantly correlated with high social connectedness and low overall threat. Specifically, urbanization level, Gini coefficient, personal medical expenditure, and birth rate were strong predictors of SWB. Our research demonstrates that social connectedness and overall threat contribute to SWB in Chinese older adults. As SWB is significantly related to the mental and physical health of older adults, the present study may serve as a useful reference for health care agencies and policy-makers.     

Quality of Life and Leisure Activities: How do Leisure Activities Contribute to Subjective Well-Being?

The quality of life is determined with objective factors and also with subjective perception of factors which influence human life. Leisure activities play a very important role in subjective well-being because they provide opportunities to meet life values and needs. Through participation in leisure activities people build social relationships, feel positive emotions, acquire additional skills and knowledge, and therefore improve their quality of life. In this report we will explore how leisure activities improve subjective well-being. We will try to distinguish among different types of leisure activities and find those which contribute more to the subjective well-being. Particularly, we will explore which leisure activities contribute to the subjective well-being of women and men of different age. Our study is based on data from a representative sample of Croatian citizens (N = 4,000), who estimated their subjective well-being and participation in various leisure activities. First, we will describe the subjective well-being of various groups of people who differ by gender and age. Afterward, we will identify important leisure activities which determine subjective well-being across age and gender groups. Overall, our results show that engagement in leisure activities contributes to subjective well being, while the pattern of important leisure activities somewhat varies across different age and gender groups.     

Work-Related Demands Emanating from Social Change and Their Relation to Trait-Like and Occasion-Specific Aspects of Subjective Well-Being

Following current macro-level social change people are increasingly confronted with new demands encompassing perceived uncertainties concerning their job and career prospects. Studies utilizing concurrent assessments showed that perceiving a high accumulation (“load”) of such demands is negatively related to individuals’ subjective well-being. Without further evidence the interpretation of the direction of these effects, however, is equivocal. Based on the concept that individuals have a rather stable trait-like level of subjective well-being from which they may vary when confronted with changes of the external ecology, the current study examined the relationship between the reported load of demands and subjective well-being assessed as general life satisfaction and average satisfaction in domains of life (i.e., family, work, finances, and leisure). We expected that a higher load of demands corresponds to a temporary decline in well-being, while at the same time differences in the stable trait-like level of well-being account for differences in the reported demand load. For the purpose of our study, we analyzed three annual waves of assessment of German adults aged between 18 and 43 years (N = 488). Utilizing a trait-state-occasion model, we separated trait-like aspects of well-being from occasion-specific deviations. Overall, our results confirmed our expectation that effects indeed run in both directions. The higher the reported load of work-related demands, the more respondents’ well-being negatively deviated from the stable trait-like level. Beyond that a higher trait-like level of well-being corresponded to a lower demand load. Both effects revealed almost equal strength and remained stable after controlling for participants’ employment status, family status, and educational attainment.     

Well-being and Mobility: A Theoretical Framework and Literature Review Focusing on Older People

There is an increasing attention for how mobility is associated with well-being amongst people in general and older adults in particular. Comparisons across research projects and articles are, however, hampered by the different understandings and conceptualisations of well-being that are employed. We, firstly, develop a heuristic framework for understanding the concept of well-being, and secondly, use this to explore possible linkages between well-being and mobility and to critically examine the various conceptualisations of well-being in research on mobility in later life. It is argued that future work on well-being and mobility should consider both the objective and the subjective and the hedonic and eudaimonic dimensions of well-being, and should pay detailed attention to the multiple ways in which well-being and its linkages to mobility are context-dependent and shaped by the particularities of time and place.     

Gender-related Effect of Cultural Participation in Psychological Well-being: Indications from the Well-being Project in the Municipality of Milan

Gender differences have been observed in the way males and females process cognitive stimuli coming from exposure to works of art and participation in leisure activities. For this reason, we designed a project to assess this issue, with a cross-sectional study in Milan, on a sample of the population consisting in 1,000 inhabitants. Our objective was to assess how cultural participation affects subjective well-being, measured with the Psychological General Well-being Scale, which gives a global index of psychological well-being ranging from 0 (lowest level of well-being) to 110 (highest level of well-being). The survey was conducted with the assistance of Doxa, an Italian pollster company, through telephone interviews, according to the Computer Aided Telephone Interview system. A significant statistical difference in variable distribution between the two genders was found for civil status (more males resulted as being single and more women widowed), income (higher income in males), cultural participation (higher in males) and psychological well-being (higher in males). As expected, state of health has the maximum impact on the level of psychological well-being. The increase in the number of concomitant diseases is in fact linearly associated with a progressive increase in psychological distress with average scores of around 60 (very low level of well-being), in the presence of 5 or more concomitant diseases, in both males and females. The impact profile of nine major determinants on subjective well-being resulted to be clearly different in the two genders. Health status dominates in both, but its impact is higher in females than in males. The obtained results remained substantially unchanged also when the two gender groups were matched according to civil status and income level distribution. Leisure activities play an important role in females (second place after health status), while in males they result as being less important (fourth place after health status, civil status and occupation). Education is quite important for females (third place), while it is given the least importance in males. This different profile probably reflects different social and environmental influences on the two genders. The social and psychological implications of these findings are discussed.     

Religiousness and Subjective Well-Being Among Israeli-Palestinian College Students: Direct or Mediated Links?

Espousing a positive psychology orientation, this study aimed to explore the links between religiousness and subjective well-being, and test whether social support and self-control mediate the expected associations between these two variables. Participants were 264 Israeli-Palestinian college students, who were asked to provide demographic information and complete measures of religiousness, social support, self-control, subjective happiness, positive emotions and negative emotions. We found that religiousness was positively correlated with both subjective happiness and positive emotions, but no significant correlation was found between religiousness and negative emotions. Both social support and self-control partially mediated the links between religiousness and both subjective happiness and positive emotions. The findings of the study, as well as its implications and limitations, are discussed.     

Social Capital in Association with Socioeconomic Variables in Iran

The objective of this study was to determine the various dimensions of social capital in Tehran and its association with socioeconomic variables. Two thousand, four hundred and eighty-four persons participated in the study through multi-stage stratified sampling in Tehran. The study questions were extracted from the World Bank integrated questionnaire. While respondents obtained over 50 % of the attainable scores in the ‘trust’, ‘cooperation’, ‘social cohesion’, and ‘political action’ dimensions, they obtained only 18.9 % of the attainable scores in the ‘networks’ dimension. The respondents in age groups older than 45 had higher trust scores than respondents in the 18–25 age group. Men had higher ‘network’ and ‘social cohesion’ scores than women (p ≤ 0.001). Respondents in the poorest wealth quintile had lower ‘networks’ and ‘social cohesion’ scores than the richest group and ‘political action’ scores higher than the richest group (p = 0.038). The lowest score in ‘Tehranians’ social capital was in the groups and networks dimension. Therefore designing effective interventions for such activities, particularly in women’s groups, is a priority.     

Assessing Subjective Well-being in Chinese Older Adults: The Chinese Aging Well Profile

Subjective well-being has increasingly been used as a key indicator of quality of life in older people. Existing evidence shows that it is likely that eastern cultures carry different life values and so the Chinese Aging Well Profile was devised for measuring subjective well-being in Chinese adults (50+). Data was collected from 1,906 community-dwelling Chinese (50+) in Taiwan in six sequential stages, involving qualitative interviews and psychometric testing. Seven key dimensions of subjective well-being identified in the interviews provided an item bank for instrument construction. The 31-item Chinese Aging Well Profile comprised seven subscales–’physical’, ‘psychological’, ‘independence’, ‘learning & growth’, ‘material’, ‘environmental’, and ‘social’ well-being. The study indicated that elements of subjective well-being are common across western and eastern cultures but are interpreted and weighted differently. This new instrument has demonstrated preliminary evidence for reliability and validity and that it is suitable for use in the Chinese speaking older population.     

The Relationships between Activity and Quality of Life for Older Men and Women at Different Ages in Taiwan

This study investigated the relationships between types of activity and quality of life (QOL) for older men and women at different ages. Based on cross-sectional data that included 220 community-dwelling elderly persons aged 65 and older in southern Taiwan, the results showed that the participation rates in many activities declined with age for both genders. Social activity and solitary leisure activity were significantly associated with QOL for old-old men, but not for young-old men. Only social activity was significantly associated with QOL for young-old women, but there was no significant association between any activity and QOL for old-old women.     

Perceptions of Fortune and Misfortune in Older South African Households: Social Assistance and the ‘Good Life’

It is commonly assumed that better living standards will boost subjective well-being. The post-apartheid South African government subscribes to this idea; its social policies aim to provide ‘a better life for all’. Since the coming of democracy in 1994, the state has built over 3 million houses and supplied electricity and clean water to poor households. By 2009, an estimated 43 % of households were beneficiaries of social grants. The question is whether this investment in services and social assistance translates into higher well-being of citizens. It is argued that older people’s experience of positive change in their life circumstances can be taken as a litmus test of progress in society. The paper reports results of a sample survey conducted in 2009 that inquired into the living circumstances and well-being of 1,000 older low-income households in two provinces linked by a labour migration route. Older households were defined as ones with a member 55 years and older. The sample was drawn among three approximately equal-sized subgroups: Rural black households in the former ‘homelands’ of the Eastern Cape Province, and black and coloured households in Cape Town in the Western Cape Province. The majority of the households in the survey had been interviewed in an earlier survey conducted in late 2002. Both material and non-material changes had occurred in the household situation over the 6-year period between 2002 and 2009. Access to housing and infrastructure had improved but financial difficulties and debts continued to plague many of the surveyed households. Rural black households appeared to be worst off among the three categories of older households with the lowest level of living; coloured households best situated with the highest level of living. Urban black households, many of whom were immigrants to Cape Town, appeared to have experienced the greatest fluctuations in their material circumstances between 2002 and 2009 and a mix of fortune and misfortune. Results indicated that social grants, which provided a modicum of financial security and peace of mind, made the crucial difference between fortune and misfortune for vulnerable households. Securing a social pension and other grants appeared to be the main route to good fortune for the rural households in the study. Households in Cape Town required wage income in addition to grant income to get by in the city. This mix of income sources diluted urban households’ dependence on social assistance. Regression model results suggest that income and financial security play a significantly more important role in boosting the well-being of low-income older households than access to services. Pooling of income, a common practice in pensioner households, contributed significantly to household satisfaction.