Aging and life satisfaction

This paper was intended to examine how major life events - such as retirement, deterioration of health, and loss of spouse - experienced in the aging process may affect the elderly's life satisfaction. An explanation was also proposed to the change in the effects of age groups on life satisfaction because of the control of the aging effect. A simple form of a longitudinal survey conducted in Taiwan in 1989 and 1993 was used for the empirical test. It was found that life satisfaction among the elderly decreased as age increased beyond 65 years of age. It was also found that social demographic variables, an income decrease, living arrangement, and level of activity participation have a profound impact on life satisfaction of Taiwan's elderly. When the correlates were controlled, the coefficients for age groups greater than 70 turned positive. This change could be explained by two types of cohort experience: (1) from rough to prosperous life experience and (2) cohort norm on life expectancy.