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. 2008 Jul;44(4):1148-59.
doi: 10.1037/0012-1649.44.4.1148.

Life satisfaction shows terminal decline in old age: longitudinal evidence from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP)

Denis Gerstorf  1 , Nilam Ram, Ryne Estabrook, Jürgen Schupp, Gert G Wagner, Ulman Lindenberger
Affiliations

Life satisfaction shows terminal decline in old age: longitudinal evidence from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP)

Denis Gerstorf et al. Dev Psychol. 2008 Jul.

Abstract

Longitudinal data spanning 22 years, obtained from deceased participants of the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP; N = 1,637; 70- to 100-year-olds), were used to examine if and how life satisfaction exhibits terminal decline at the end of life. Changes in life satisfaction were more strongly associated with distance to death than with distance from birth (chronological age). Multiphase growth models were used to identify a transition point about 4 years prior to death where the prototypical rate of decline in life satisfaction tripled from -0.64 to -1.94 T-score units per year. Further individual-level analyses suggest that individuals dying at older ages spend more years in the terminal periods of life satisfaction decline than individuals dying at earlier ages. Overall, the evidence suggests that late-life changes in aspects of well-being are driven by mortality-related mechanisms and characterized by terminal decline.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Estimates from the optimal multi-phase growth model over distance-to-death in life satisfaction, as identified using 22-wave yearly longitudinal data from now deceased, 70 to 100 year old SOEP participants (N = 1,637; see right-hand panel of Table 3). Prototypical (thick line) and model-implied intraindividual changes in life satisfaction for a random selection of 100 deceased participants (thin lines) are shown. At a change point 4.19 years prior to death, the rate of decline steepened from the pre-terminal phase (− 0.64 T-Score units per year) to the terminal phase (− 1.94 T-Score units per year) by a factor of 3.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Estimates from the optimal multi-phase growth model over distance-to-death in life satisfaction with interindividual differences in the change point, as identified in a subset of SOEP participants who provided a large number of longitudinal observations (~12+ observations; n = 400; see right-hand panel of Table 4). Prototypical (thick line) and model-implied intraindividual changes in life satisfaction for a random selection of 100 deceased participants (thin lines) are shown. Large interindividual differences in the location of the change point to more pronounced late-life decline in life satisfaction can be seen. While on average, this subset of individuals transitioned to the terminal phase at 4.05 years before death, some individuals entered earlier (e.g., six years prior to death), some later (e.g., one year prior), and some hardly or not at all.
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