Socioeconomic Comparisons and Life Satisfaction of Elderly Adults

Abstract

The hypothesis that overall satisfaction with life is influenced by one's financial situation vis-a-vis significant others was tested. Respondents compared themselves financially to the relative, friend, and neighbor to whom they felt closest. Data from a 1980 community survey of persons 60 years of age and older showed that the better off financially respondents perceived themselves to be compared with the relative to whom they felt closest, the greater the life satisfaction. This effect was independent of functional health, age, sex, race, marital status, education, income, household size, and social participation. These findings suggest that life satisfaction reflects not only one's location in the broader stratification system but also one's location in a rather limited network of significant others.

A multidimensional model of the quality of life in older age

“…Research has indicated that good health, functional ability, a sense of personal adequacy or usefulness, social participation, social networks, especially the existence of friends, social support and level of income have often been reported to be signi cantly associated with both psychological well-being and quality of life in older age (Maddox, 1963;Lowenthal & Haven, 1968;Markides & Martin, 1979;Kushman & Lane, 1980;Usui et al, 1985;Vailant, 1990;Bowling et al, 1996;Bowling & Windsor, 2001). Subjective self-ratings of well-being, and health have been reported to be more powerful than objective economic or socio-demographic indicators in explaining the variance in quality of life ratings (Markides & Martin, 1979;Kushman & Lane, 1980;Usui et al, 1985;Bowling et al, 1996;Bowling & Windsor, 2001).…”

“…Subjective self-ratings of well-being, and health have been reported to be more powerful than objective economic or socio-demographic indicators in explaining the variance in quality of life ratings (Markides & Martin, 1979;Kushman & Lane, 1980;Usui et al, 1985;Bowling et al, 1996;Bowling & Windsor, 2001).…”

Ageing, Health and Life Satisfaction of the Oldest Old: An Analysis for Germany

“…In reality, the general finding of the large body of gerontological literature on the relationship between age and life satisfaction is that there is no age-related decline in life satisfaction (Larson, 1978;Herzog and Rodgers, 1981;Horley and Lavery, 1995;Diener and Suh, 1997;Smith et al, 1999 This section reviews some recent research on the relationship between health and life satisfaction: older studies include Markides and Martin (1979), Kushman and Lane (1980), Usui et al (1985), and Waters et al (1989).…”

Health, Quality of Care and Quality of Life: A Case of Frail Older Adults

“…However, this study did not find a significant association between selfreported physical activity levels and life satisfaction among this sample of frail older adults. It is not impossible that the significant association between self-report physical conditions and life satisfaction observed in previous studies (Gupta and Korte 1994;Usui et al 1985) may not exist with a sample of exclusive frail older adults. However, given the limited generalizability of this study, further research is needed in order to fully understand the relationship between self-reported physical activity levels and life satisfaction among frail older adults.…”

“…Although previous research supported the importance of including health in life satisfaction studies, there has not been a consistent definition or measure of health. Generally speaking, in gerontological studies of subjective well-being, health has often been conceptualized as: (1) self evaluation of, or perceived, health status (e.g., Donnenwerth and Peterson 1992;Markides and Martin 1979;Russell 1990;Tran 1992), (2) satisfaction with one's own health (e.g., Krause 1991), or (3) self-report physical/activity conditions (e.g., Gupta and Korte 1994;Usui et al 1985). The current study uses all three definitions of health in exploring the relationship between quality of care of geriatric case management and quality of life (life satisfaction, in this case).…”