Productive Activities and Subjective Well-Being among Older Adults: The Influence of Number of Activities and Time Commitment

This study examines relationships among three measures of subjective well-being (life satisfaction, happiness and depressive symptoms), and two global measures of productive activity (number of activities and time commitment). We argue that participation in multiple productive activities should incr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Social indicators research 2005-09, Vol.73 (3), p.431-458
Main Authors: Baker, Lindsey A., Cahalin, Lawrence P., Gerst, Kerstin, Burr, Jeffrey A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Activities
Adults
Aging
Aging (Individuals)
Aging problems. Death
Depression (Psychology)
Depressive disorders
Elderly
Elderly people
Epistemology
Exercise
Gerontology
Happiness
Helping Relationship
Housekeeping
Interpersonal Relationship
Life Satisfaction
Measurement
Old age
Older Adults
Older people
Physical Health
Predictor Variables
Productive activity
Productivity
Psychological Patterns
Psychologists
Quality of Life
Regression analysis
Research methods
Roles
Satisfaction
Social Indicators
Social Integration
Social interaction
Social Networks
Sociology
Sociology of the family. Age groups
Studies
Subjective wellbeing
Subjectivity
Time Management
Volunteerism
Volunteers
Waves
Welfare economics
Well Being
Wellbeing
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Summary:This study examines relationships among three measures of subjective well-being (life satisfaction, happiness and depressive symptoms), and two global measures of productive activity (number of activities and time commitment). We argue that participation in multiple productive activities should increase subjective well-being because these behaviors increase social integration and provide meaningful social roles. Using the first two waves of the Americans' Changing Lives survey, we estimate a series of OLS and ordered logistic regression models to examine this issue among a sample of respondents 60 years old and older. Our multivariate regression results show that as time committed to productive activities increases, life satisfaction increases. Both increasing numbers of productive activities and increasing time commitment predict higher levels of happiness. Also, we find only modest support for a relationship between productive activities and the number of and changes in depressive symptoms. Our results provide support for the idea that engaging in productive activities is beneficial to older persons' well-being, implying confirmation of the role enhancement hypothesis and demonstrating the importance of social integration.
ISSN:0303-8300
1573-0921
DOI:10.1007/s11205-005-0805-6