1. Life course pathways to later life
wellbeing
Bram Vanhoutte, James Nazroo & Alan Marshall
CCSR, University of Manchester

2. Aristotle
Epicurus/Aristippus

3. Subjective well-being
Hedonic
Eudaimonic
(cognitive+affective)
• Roots in Epicurus,
Bentham, Mill
-Well-being is
maximalisation of
pleasure, minimalisation
of suffering
• Roots in Aristotle:
- Well-being is about
developing one-self and
realising one’s potential
(Maslow 1968; Erikson
1959)

4. Life course models
• Critical period model
– Influences at a specific point in time (often early
life) have a life lasting influence
• Accumulation model
– The accumulation of advantage/ disadvantage
across the life course is most relevant
• Social Mobility
– What are the consequences of rising and falling on
the social ladder?

5. Accumulation model
• The accumulation of advantage/ disadvantage
across the life course is most relevant
• Accumulation through environmental,
behavioural and psychosocial processes
• Examples:
– Matthew effect (Merton 1968)
– Habitus (Bourdieu 1984)
– Allostatic load (McEwen & Stellar 1993)

6. Life course models
• Plenty of supportive evidence for
accumulation model for Mortality and Physical
Health/Illness (Case & Paxson 2011, Pollitt, Rose & Kaufman
2005, Kuh & Schlomo 2004, and many more)
• No investigation of Subjective Well-being and
limited research on Psychological health
(exceptions: Luo & Waite 2005, Haas 2008, both using HRS)

7. Research questions
• Do trajectories of wellbeing in later life differ
according to accumulative socio-economic
profiles?
• Divergence or convergence of wellbeing in
later life (Dannefer 1988 , House, Kessler, Herzog et al.
1990) ?

8. Data
• English Longitudinal Study of Aging (ELSA)
– 5 Waves (2002-2010)
– Wave 1 :11000 participants aged 50+
– Wave 5: 6200 core participants
– Refresher + Booster samples
• Available at ukds.co.uk

9. Affective, Cognitive and Eudaimonic Wellbeing
Depressive Symptoms
(CES-D)
(Radloff, 1977)
-Felt depressed
-Was happy
-Could not get
going
-Enjoyed life
-...
Satisfaction With Life
Scale
(Diener, 1984)
-In most ways my life is
close to ideal
-The conditions of my life
are excellent
-...
CASP15
(Hyde et al, 2003)
Control/Autonomy
-I feel that what happens
to me is out of control
Pleasure
-I enjoy the things that I
do
Self-Actualisation
Yes/No
Strongly agree to
Strongly disagree (7
categories)
Score from 0-8
Score from 5-35
-I choose to do things
that I have never done
before
Often/Sometimes/Not
often/Never
Score from 4-45

10. Life course trajectories
– Occupation of Parent (age 14)
– Educational level (age 20)
– Current/last occupation (age 50)

11. Accumulation ?
• Restructure life course by advantaged/
disadvantaged social positions
– Lowest exposure
• 000 = Parent Managerial / Professional Class +High level
of education + Self in Managerial/Professional Class
– Highest exposure
• 222 = Parent Routine and Manual Class + Low level of
education + Self Routine and Manual Class
> assumes difference between two classes is
equivalent + same value for each point in time

12. Some descriptives
• Most common trajectories:
– 222: always in the lowest category (23%)
– 221: low background, but middle class job (7%)
– 000: always in the highest category (6%)
• A lot of missing info on parental occupations
(other jobs/something else = 21%)
• Recoded to three categories of similar size

13. Growth curve models
• Ideally suited to describe change at the
personal level
• Intercept (cross-sectional difference at W1)
and slope (longitudinal evolution)
• Age-vector model: growth model based
illustration of how a cohort (5y) changes over
time
• Assumes Missing at Random(MAR)…

14. MAR
Selection
Shared parameter
4
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
1
2
3
4
5

15. Dealing with Attrition
• Selective drop-out :
– Related to outcome/trajectory?
– Related to differential mortality?
– Related to unobserved factor influencing both(eg.
physical health)
• Use selection model (Diggle & Kenwood) and
shared parameter model (Wu & Carrol) to
compare findings

16. Affective wellbeing men
4.5
4
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
52
57
62
67
72
77
82
87
92

17. Cognitive wellbeing men
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
54
59
64
69
74
79
84
89
94

18. Eudaimonic well-being men
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
52 54 56 58 60 62 64 66 68 70 72 74 76 78 80 82 84 86 88 90 92 94

19. Conclusions
• The life course accumulation has an effect on
later life trajectories of well-being
• Strong diverging tendencies across cognitive,
affective and eudaimonic aspects of wellbeing
in third age
• Leveling off or converging in fourth age