age, ageing and wellbeing in later life

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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icted

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P-15

scor

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Evolution CASP 15

Evolution CES-D

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-D sc

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Evolution Life Satisfaction

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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.