Historical Improvements in Well-Being Do Not Hold in Late Life: Birth- and Death-Year Cohorts in the United States and Germany

Autor/inn/en	Hülür, Gizem; Ram, Nilam; Gerstorf, Denis
Titel	Historical Improvements in Well-Being Do Not Hold in Late Life: Birth- and Death-Year Cohorts in the United States and Germany
Quelle	In: Developmental Psychology, 51 (2015) 7, S.998-1012 (15 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0012-1649
DOI	10.1037/a0039349
Schlagwörter	Foreign Countries; Well Being; Individual Development; History; Cohort Analysis; Longitudinal Studies; Death; Birth; Older Adults; Improvement; Differences; Germany; United States; Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Ausland; Well-being; Wellness; Wohlbefinden; Individuelle Entwicklung; Geschichte; Geschichtsdarstellung; Kohortenanalyse; Longitudinal study; Longitudinal method; Longitudinal methods; Längsschnittuntersuchung; Sterbefall; Tod; Todesfall; Geburt; Älterer Erwachsener; Qualitätssteigerung; Unterscheiden; Deutschland; USA
Abstract	One key objective of life span research is to examine how individual development is shaped by the historical time people live in. Secular trends favoring later-born cohorts on fluid cognitive abilities have been widely documented, but findings are mixed for well-being. It remains an open question whether secular increases in well-being seen in earlier phases of life also manifest in the last years of life. To examine this possibility, we made use of longitudinal data obtained from the mid-1980s until the late 2000s in 2 large national samples in the United States (Health and Retirement Study [HRS]) and Germany (German Socio-Economic Panel [SOEP]). We operationally defined historical time from 2 complementary perspectives: "birth-year cohorts" based on the years in which people were born (earlier: 1930s vs. later: 1940s) and "death-year cohorts" based on the years in which people died (earlier: 1990s vs. later: 2000s). To control for relevant covariates, we used case-matched groups based on age (at death) and education and covaried for gender, health, and number of observations. Results from both countries revealed that well-being in old age was indeed developing at higher levels among later-born cohorts. However, for later-deceased cohorts, no evidence for secular increases in well-being was found. To the contrary, later-dying SOEP participants reported lower levels of well-being at age 75 and 2 years prior to death and experienced steeper late-life declines. Our results suggest that secular increases in well-being observed in old age do not manifest in late life, where "manufactured" survival may be exacerbating age- and mortality-related declines. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2020/1/01