Leisure Consumption and well-Being among Older Adults: Does Age or Life Situation Matter?

Tiia Kekäläinen (), Terhi-Anna Wilska () and Katja Kokko ()
Additional contact information
Tiia Kekäläinen: University of Jyväskylä
Terhi-Anna Wilska: University of Jyväskylä
Katja Kokko: University of Jyväskylä

Applied Research in Quality of Life, 2017, vol. 12, issue 3, No 9, 691 pages

Abstract: Abstract This study investigated the associations between leisure consumption and well-being in older adults (50–74 years old). To find out whether these associations are age-specific, they were compared with the associations observed among younger adults (18–49 years old). Differences between the older adults by age and life situation were also examined. This study was based on the “Finland 2014 – Consumption and Life style” survey (N = 1351), conducted among a representative sample of the Finnish adult population. Well-being was measured as mental, economic and physical well-being. Objects of leisure consumption were grouped by factor analysis, and the associations between the resulting leisure consumption factors and the dimensions of well-being were studied using regression analysis. In addition, interaction terms were used to compare differences in the associations between younger and older adults, and among older adults varying in their life situation. In the older adults, appearance was related to better mental well-being, literature & culture to better economic well-being, and exercise to better physical well-being. Travel was linked positively to all the dimensions of well-being, and health care negatively to mental and physical well-being. Some differences in the associations were observed between the younger and older adults; for example, exercise but not appearance was associated with better emotional well-being among the younger adults. In general, the associations were stronger in the older than younger adults. Among the older adults, age, employment status, and marital status moderated some associations. Further research, especially with longitudinal data, is needed to clarify the causal relationships between leisure consumption and well-being.

Keywords: Leisure; Consumption; Emotional well-being; Physical well-being; Economic well-being; Older adults (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11482-016-9483-6 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:ariqol:v:12:y:2017:i:3:d:10.1007_s11482-016-9483-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/11482

DOI: 10.1007/s11482-016-9483-6

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Research in Quality of Life is currently edited by Daniel Shek

More articles in Applied Research in Quality of Life from Springer, International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().