TY - JOUR T1 - Historical improvements in well-being do not hold in late life: Birth- and death-year cohorts in the United States and Germany. JF - Dev Psychol Y1 - 2015 A1 - Hülür, Gizem A1 - Ram, Nilam A1 - Denis Gerstorf KW - Aged KW - Aging KW - Cohort Effect KW - depression KW - Epidemiologic Research Design KW - Female KW - Germany KW - Health Status KW - Health Surveys KW - Humans KW - Longitudinal Studies KW - Male KW - Propensity Score KW - United States AB -

One key objective of life span research is to examine how individual development is shaped by the historical time people live in. Secular trends favoring later-born cohorts on fluid cognitive abilities have been widely documented, but findings are mixed for well-being. It remains an open question whether secular increases in well-being seen in earlier phases of life also manifest in the last years of life. To examine this possibility, we made use of longitudinal data obtained from the mid-1980s until the late 2000s in 2 large national samples in the United States (Health and Retirement Study [HRS]) and Germany (German Socio-Economic Panel [SOEP]). We operationally defined historical time from 2 complementary perspectives: birth-year cohorts based on the years in which people were born (earlier: 1930s vs. later: 1940s) and death-year cohorts based on the years in which people died (earlier: 1990s vs. later: 2000s). To control for relevant covariates, we used case-matched groups based on age (at death) and education and covaried for gender, health, and number of observations. Results from both countries revealed that well-being in old age was indeed developing at higher levels among later-born cohorts. However, for later-deceased cohorts, no evidence for secular increases in well-being was found. To the contrary, later-dying SOEP participants reported lower levels of well-being at age 75 and 2 years prior to death and experienced steeper late-life declines. Our results suggest that secular increases in well-being observed in old age do not manifest in late life, where "manufactured" survival may be exacerbating age- and mortality-related declines.

PB - 51 VL - 51 IS - 7 N1 - Times Cited: 0 0 U1 - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26098582?dopt=Abstract U2 - PMC4654950 U4 - life span research/Cognitive ability/cross-national comparison/well being ER -