Late-Life Preparedness and Its Correlates: A Behavioral Perspective on Preparation

Yaeji Kim-Knauss, Frieder R Lang and Shevaun Neupert

The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, 2021, vol. 76, issue 8, 1555-1564

Abstract: ObjectivesThe present study examined the extent of late-life preparedness and its correlates. In accordance with behavior theories, we postulated that those who have prior experience with caregiving and who perceive such activities as more useful and less risky are more likely to engage in late-life preparatory activities. Because the perceived distance until aging-related life challenges become prevalent may play a role in late-life preparedness, we hypothesized that the effects of the correlates would vary depending on one’s subjective remaining life expectation (SRLE).MethodsBuilding upon cross-sectional data including 581 German adults from 18 to 93 years, we fitted a hurdle model that separately analyzes the presence and variety of self-reported action engagement to better handle the zero-inflated count measure of preparatory activities.ResultsThe results revealed that the effects of perceived utility, caregiving experience, and SRLE were significant for both the presence and variety of activities. SRLE was found to moderate the observed effects in the models: The effect of perceived utility on the presence of at least one late-life preparatory activity was larger for those with lower SRLE. In contrast, among those with higher SRLE, having provided care increased the variety of preparatory activities.DiscussionFindings suggest that some of the examined psychosocial factors are similarly associated with both the presence of at least one and the variety of late-life preparatory activities, although the extent of their effects varies depending on one’s subjective life stage.

Keywords: Caregiving experience; Perceived risk; Perceived utility; Subjective remaining life expectation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/geronb/gbaa088 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:geronb:v:76:y:2021:i:8:p:1555-1564.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

The Journals of Gerontology: Series B is currently edited by Psychological Sciences - S. Duke Han, PhD and Social Sciences - Jessica A Kelley, PhD, FGSA

More articles in The Journals of Gerontology: Series B from The Gerontological Society of America Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().