An anatomy of old-age disability: Time use, affect and experienced utility

Gabriela Flores, Michael Ingenhaag and Jürgen Maurer

Journal of Health Economics, 2015, vol. 44, issue C, 150-160

Abstract: Complementing the commonly used concepts of evaluative wellbeing and decision utility, emotional wellbeing and experienced utility are important welfare criteria to assess individuals’ subjective wellbeing, especially for valuing health and disability. Yet, almost all empirical evidences on the link between disability and experienced wellbeing come from developed countries. This paper studies the relationship between old-age disability and experienced utility in five low- and middle-income countries. Using data on individual time use and activity-specific affective experiences from an abbreviated version of the Day Reconstruction Method, we document a strong negative association between disability and experienced utility. These differences in experienced utility by disability status are exclusively due to worse activity-specific affective experiences among persons with disabilities. By contrast, disability-related differences in time use provide small compensating effects. Interventions or technologies that facilitate daily life hold most promise to improve experienced utility among persons with disabilities in the developing world.

Keywords: Disability; Time use; Experienced utility; Wellbeing; Low-and middle-income countries (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I31 J14 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jhecon:v:44:y:2015:i:c:p:150-160

DOI: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2015.09.003

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