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

Gabriela Flores, Michael Ingenhaag and Jürgen Maurer

Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'économie from Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, Département d’économie

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 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I31 J14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39 pp. + tables (total 74 pp.)
Date: 2013-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-dem, nep-hap and nep-hea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:lau:crdeep:13.13

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