Adult Development And Aging: Happiness In Later Life
In this essay, I will write about happiness in later life. In psychology happiness define as a happy person as someone who experiences frequent positive emotions, such as joy, interest, and pride, and infrequent (though not absent). Happiness also relates to life satisfaction, appreciation of life and moment of pleasure. There are several factors that contribute to happiness in older, but I am focused on cross-culture view as happiness in later life.
In a different country, people have a different perspective on happiness such as income, education, gender and, married statue. Sumngrn (2010) argued that there was the similar definition of happiness in all the viewpoints: religion, academic level, and the public. Study use three different senior clubs who are 60 years or older. They are from different social status. 108 participating form the rural area, 98 participants form suburban area and, 100 from an urban area, a total of 306 elder people are participating in this study. This study is the qualitative data about, “what make the participants happy”. This data was gathered by the research instrument as the Thai happiness indicators: THI-15:2001. Study uses 12 positive question and 3 negative question scales from 0 (never) to 3 (always). About what makes them happy. The result is that 95. 4% of the participants are Buddhist and 47. 4% male and 52. 6 % of female. Rural and suburban regions had a high percentage of people perceiving their happiness as poor in the urban area. Also, the study found that seniors who have a good perception of happiness was being with their family and have contact with their children, have adequate income, and have good health. Also participating in the religious ceremony. Study thinks that happiness is the subjective well- being which is a general indicator of successful aging. They found that 49. 7% elderly perceived their happiness as poor. In Thai culture, the elderly receive respect form the younger generation that makes them happy.
The study also talks about income influence the happiness. The study shows that if you don’t have any job you indicated being happier than those who still needed to work because of income was not enough for them and their family. Also, the person who completes associated or higher-level education are happier than who completed lower level. This study tells us that you most have everything to make you happy in your older life such as your job, education, status etc. Become a well- being or satisfactory in your life you have to get support from others.
Another study that I found about, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days? Taking all things together, how happy would you say you are? Study use 65 years or older adult who are native Russian speaker from Tomsk Region (Siberian Federal District, Russia). who did not have any neurological diagnosis. This study focusses on the cross- section form different age and door to door interview and randomly choose the street and select only one, older person in the family. Each interview takes up to 40 to 60. I also found that female is more well- being then man as previous study of Sumngrn. Didino (2018) life expectancy at birth for male 64. 7% years, whereas for female it is 76. 3%. In the cross- section they use two different variables and they are independent and dependent variables. Independent variable is the experiment that you control as the experiment and one that create two or more group in the study. In this study they use (receiving and providing social support, emotional support, social network, caring for children and grandchildren, having children or grandchildren, standard of living, residence area, self reported health, age, sex, marital status, and education). Dependent variables are something that you can measure for example life satisfaction and happiness use in this study to measure. The result show that older adult satisfied with their standard of living and health then other respondent. But study does not find any evidence about the well- being and caring for children or grandchildren. Study also found that economic situation helps strongly in both happiness and satisfaction. In this happiness also include the conative and emotional component of subjective well-being. That show self-report health, standard living and, social factor. So far, we see both study about happiness in previse paragraph and this paragraph both have almost same data about man and women. Also, both talk about marital status, but both are different kind of experiment, first study experimental is longitudinal study and second is cross-section. There are lots of things you can to make your life satisfactory one of them is volunteer in community. Because after you retried from work you don’t have anything to do. If you volunteer in community without money you will feel happy and make other happy.
I found one of the study talk about, relationship between volunteering and happiness between Maori and non-Maori in the New Zealand. And this study is the Retirement Longitudinal Study. Correlational and multiple regression procedures. Data were garnered from the 2008 administration of the New Zealand Health. Study focus on 55-70 years older who is almost retried from the work. 13, 045 people form 55-70 ware surveyed but only 3116 are elected to do longitudinal study. In this study they also focus on socioeconomic status, age, education, and marital status in retirement. For example, their level of education such as high school completion, collage completion or higher level. Also, marriage as single, divorced or widowed married or partnered. Study show that more percentage in people who just marriage then who are divorced. Only small percentage older adult are new married. There is less participant form the Maori then New Zealander of European. Dulin (2011) there are 42. 9% are the primary ethnicity as Maori. 52. 4% are identified as a New Zealander of European. Study found that Maori reported high level of happiness then non-Maori because non-Maori emphasis physical and mental well-being. Maori emphasis providing helpful, unpaid service to other. Volunteer and happiness amount those with lower ELS (Economic living standard). Maori have low ELS then non-Maori because non-Maori have high level of ELS. This study shows about how you can help other people without money by doing volunteer and get happiness. Sometime happy not come from money or work. If you involve in some social or cultural activity, it’s make me happier then wealth.
I found of the article that relate to social activity called “Happiness Components and their Attainment in Old Age: A Cross-Cultural Comparison Between Italy and Cuba”. In this study researcher use cross- section of different age group from two different country like Cubs and Italy. This study focusses on three level of group they are who go to social center for example, when older people go one place to play or do other activities that call social group. Second group is involved in cultural activity. Last group is who do not take part in any social or cultural activity Sotgiv (2010). There were 395 people who participate in this study. 209 participate from Italy who are 60- 97 years old and 186 participate from Cuba age of 60-97 years old. In this study participate have to write down the 5 thing that make them happy and evaluate them to scale. They also assess a marital status, education, they looking for level of education did they have. this study took 20 min to complete. When research get the answer from the participation and they put the answer into three category family, values and, pleasant event. This study looking for correlation between two countries. Study found that hobbies, sex, and good luck were cited only by the Italian.
Other hand security and dealing with adversities were cited by Cuban Sotgiv (2018). This study is about American and Japanese. In the American sample researcher use longitudinal follow up of a sub sample from 1, 255 participations 541 male and 707 females from 34-84 years old. In japan sample the parallel data use to study. They use 494 males and 516 female age of 50 -79 years old total of 1, 027. They use specific self-report scales, they are independent self-construal: personal expression of emotions. Also, other-related like giving social support to others. Items use from the MIDUS ll and MLDJA database were used in the study. They use English and Japanese receptivity. Result seem like American group had higher independent compare to the Japanese group. Japanese sample had higher interdependent then independent score.
The result they found that both country have similar influences both self and other related on SWB. Specifically, motional expression and social support provision contribute equally to SWB in both groups. You can get happiness from lots of thing like wealth, work and others. But, the most important is family. Personal experience, in my culture we love older people, we always respect them and make them happy and care them until they die. Every family member goes to work but they still manage to care their older parent. But in the United states they put older people in nursing home because they don’t have time to care them or other health issue.
I found one study about “Marriage and Children as a Key to Happiness? Cross-National Differences in the Effects of Marital Status and Children on Well-Being”. In this study they examine the relationship between family structure and subjective well-being of different culture. They use 2002 ISSP (International Social Survey Programme) data to find marriage status and children on happiness. They use lots of age group categories from 22-55 years old from 25 countries who living with a partner. In this study researcher ask verities of question about happiness such Vanassche (2012) all thing considered, how satisfied are you with your family life? Seven response categories were possible in this study and they are: completely satisfied – very satisfied- fairly satisfied- neither satisfied nor unsatisfied- fairly unsatisfied — very unsatisfied — completely unsatisfied. this is how researcher use to see If they are happy or not. Study found that 63% of the variance in happiness between countries for man and 67% for women. When researcher done collecting all the survey and found that married people are happier then cohabitating counterparts. Also, we might say that marriage is beneficial for man, while for women family life more important and satisfying.
