age, ageing and wellbeing in later life
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Age effects on subjective well-being in later life
Stephen Jivraj, Bram Vanhoutte, James Nazroo & Tarani Chandola
University of Manchester
Frailty, Resilience and Inequality in Later Life
Background
• In general population wellbeing is U-shaped over age (Blanchflower & Oswald 2008)
• How does well-being evolve in later life (50+)?
– Is there a third age (Laslett 1989) ?
– What does ageing substantively mean?• Only a decline in conditions and circumstances (health,
social support, partnership, ses, …)?
What is subjective well-being?
• Subjective well-being (SWB) is – mental health more than physical health?– subjective judgement more than objective
conditions?– a social construct rather than universal truth?
• Measuring SWB relates to normative ideas about what ‘the good life’ is about!
Epicurus/AristippusAristotle
Hedonic well-being
• Philosophical roots in Aristippus of Cyrene, Epicurus, Bentham, Mill– Well-being is maximalisation of pleasure,
minimalisation of suffering
• Affective and cognitive aspect (Diener 1984)– Both + and – affect, based on moods and emotions– Individual assessment of quality of life, based on
internal criteria (Life satisfaction)
• Hedonic • Well-being
• Positive Affect
• Affective
• Cognitive• + • -
• Negative Affect
• CES-D
• SWLS
• Domain specific
• Holistic
Eudaimonic well-being
• Different operationalisations, with similar subdimensions:– Psychological Well-being (Ryff & Singer, 1998)– Self-determination Theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000)– In later life: CASP (Hyde, Wiggins, Higgs & Blane, 2003)
• Philosophical roots in Aristotle:• Well-being is about developing one-self
and realising one’s potential (Maslow 1968; Erikson 1959)
Eudaimonic Well-being
• Eudaimonic • Well-being
• Autonomy & Self-realisation • Cont
rol• Pleas
ure
• CASP
CASP15
Research Questions
• What are the effects of ageing, cross-sectional and longitudinal, on well-being?
• Do different measures show similar age-effects?
• Does controlling for circumstances explain away age-effects ?
Data• English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA)– Longitudinal unbalanced sample • 10.331 respondents (aged 50+) in wave 1 (2002-2003) • 5.913 in wave 5 (2010-2011) • Average of 3.1 waves completed
• SWB Measures:– CASP15: quality of life, autonomy, self-
actualisation– CES-D: depressive symptoms– SWLS: evaluative of life satisfaction
Method: Latent Growth model• Multilevel/Hierarchical/Random model with 2
levels– observations (L 1) nested in individuals (L 2)
• Steps – Null model => 50-30 % of change in SWB is intra-
individual. – Model with only age– Full Model
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Age
Pred
icted
CAS
P-15
scor
e
Evolution CASP 15
Evolution CES-D
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Age
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CES
-D sc
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Evolution Life Satisfaction
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Age
Pred
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Explaining age effects
• Controlling for conditions, is there still an age effect? (Full model => 32-40% of total variance is explained )
• Controls: – Wave / gender / ethnicity / marital status /
wealth / social class / education / employment status / LLSI / ADL / chronic conditions / close contacts / social support / volunteering / caring
Age vs Full model CASP 15
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Full model Age Model
Age vs Full Model CES-D
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Age model Full Model
Age vs Full model SWLS
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Age model Full model
Conclusion
• Different measures different stories? • What does ageing mean in terms of well-
being, is it only a decline in conditions or is something else happening?– CASP – quality of life in later life still declines,
taking into account all known correlates – CES-D- rise in depressive symptoms can almost
entirely be explained by conditions– SWLS – controlling for conditions, people evaluate
their life in more positive terms as they get older.