Healthy, wealthy, wise, and happy? An exploratory analysis of the interplay between aging and subjective well-being in low and middle income countries

Details

Serval ID
serval:BIB_70FE60258D50
Type
Report: a report published by a school or other institution, usually numbered within a series.
Publication sub-type
Working paper: Working papers contain results presented by the author. Working papers aim to stimulate discussions between scientists with interested parties, they can also be the basis to publish articles in specialized journals
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
Healthy, wealthy, wise, and happy? An exploratory analysis of the interplay between aging and subjective well-being in low and middle income countries
Author(s)
Flores Gabriela, Ingenhaag Michael, Maurer Jürgen
Institution details
Ecole HEC-DEEP
Address
Lausanne
Issued date
2013
Number
13.13
Genre
Cahier de recherches économiques
Language
english
Number of pages
74
Abstract
In this paper, we address the relationship between age and several dimension of subjective well-being. Whilst literature generally finds a U-shaped age-profile in subjective well-being, this age-pattern might only hold after controlling for objective life circumstances. The observed U-shaped age-profile might further not generalize to other dimensions of well-being and might vary across countries and cultures. Our study examines the relationship between age and several dimensions of well-being as well as the effect of objective life circumstances using the WHO Study on Global AGEing and Adult Health (SAGE). Our results suggest a decreasing age profile in the raw data associated with evaluative well-being, while experienced well-being shows a rather flat or slightly increasing pattern. However, age per se is not a cause of a decline in evaluative well-being. The negative age-profile in evaluative well-being is mainly explained by changes in life circumstances associated with aging. Controlling for socio-demographic factors, we find higher levels of well-being for older persons relative to their middle-aged counterparts. In contrast, we find that changes in life circumstances have a much smaller effect on experienced well-being.
Keywords
Aging , Subjective Well-being , Low and middle income countries
Create date
11/11/2013 15:40
Last modification date
20/08/2019 15:29
Usage data