Successful ageing in the oldest old: objectively and subjectively measured evidence from a population-based survey in Germany

Marina Plugge ()
Additional contact information
Marina Plugge: University of Cologne

European Journal of Ageing, 2021, vol. 18, issue 4, No 10, 537-547

Abstract: Abstract Despite rapid increase of people aged 80 and over, concepts of successful ageing (SA) are primarily examined for people below that age. Therefore, successful ageing was examined in a population-based representative sample of N = 1863 people aged 80 to 102 (NRW80+) with 11% living in institutionalized settings. In this survey on quality of life and well-being, multiple linear and logistic regression models were used to calculate the distribution of successful agers. According to Rowe and Kahn’s objective definition, 9% of the sample aged successfully, but one-third (33%) still met four to five SA criteria. This is in line with the theoretical a priori criterion of 10% in a normal distribution of a sample, while 80% age normally and 10% pathologically. However, averages of life satisfaction, affective well-being, positive ageing experience and valuation of life were high. The majority of the oldest old (65%) are successful agers in their own subjective perception, which is not in line with objective measurements. Moreover, 11% of objectively measured successful agers do not meet subjective criteria. These empirical findings reveal a remarkable discrepancy between objective and subjective criteria of SA. Future research on concepts that define successful ageing for the oldest old should consider more holistic markers of success, e.g., outcomes of productive social engagement.

Keywords: Successful ageing; Subjective well-being; Oldest old (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10433-021-00609-7 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:eujoag:v:18:y:2021:i:4:d:10.1007_s10433-021-00609-7

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.springer ... iences/journal/10433

DOI: 10.1007/s10433-021-00609-7

Access Statistics for this article

European Journal of Ageing is currently edited by Marja Aartsen, Susanne Iwarsson and Prof. Dr. Matthias Kliegel

More articles in European Journal of Ageing from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().