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

50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 9720

25

30

35

40

Age

Pred

icted

CAS

P-15

scor

e

Evolution CASP 15

Evolution CES-D

50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 970

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

Age

Pred

icted

CES

-D sc

ore

Evolution Life Satisfaction

50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 9720

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

Age

Pred

icted

SW

LS sc

ore

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

50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 8924

26

28

30

32

34

36

38

Full model Age Model

Age vs Full Model CES-D

50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 890

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

Age model Full Model

Age vs Full model SWLS

50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 8920

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

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.