The Multidimensional Structure of Subjective Well-Being In Later Life

Abstract

Subjective well-being can be measured in different ways, depending on the conceptual perspective one adopts. Hedonic well-being, emphasising emotions and evaluation, is often contrasted with eudemonic well-being, stressing self-actualisation and autonomy. In this paper we investigate the background, structure and compatibility of empirical measures of hedonic and eudemonic well-being in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA). We use a confirmatory factor approach to investigate the internal of structure of the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ), Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression scale (CES-D), Satisfaction with Life scale (SWLS) and CASP, a measure of quality of life in old age. In a second step, we examine the higher order structure of well-being using these measures. Next to highlighting specific issues about the structure of these measures in connection to older populations, we illustrate that a threefold structure, distinguishing affective, cognitive and eudemonic aspects of well-being, is more informative than the two dimensional hedonic and eudemonic well-being that is often propagated.

Keywords: Confirmatory factor analysis; Measurement; Subjective well-being.

Fig. 1

Schematic representation of measures of hedonic well-being

Fig. 2

1 factor model for CASP 19

Fig. 3

1 factor model for CASP 19 with error correlations

Fig. 4

1 factor model for CASP 19 with method factor for negatively worded items

Fig. 5

2 factor model for CASP 19

Fig. 6

3 factor model for CASP 19