Happiness at Older Ages
This chapter investigates happiness after aging. As people move from middle into older ages, their circumstances and experiences change in many ways. Most people retire; their children leave home and establish independent lives; physical and cognitive capacities decline; and the experience of the death and loss of loved ones becomes more common. These changes influence financial resources, social relationships, independence, and autonomy. At the same time, people who no longer feel bound by the constraints of middle age may find fresh opportunities as they age, together with relief from many important sources of stress. All these processes mean that the determinants of satisfaction with life may change with aging, or at least that the relative importance of the various sources of life-satisfaction may shift as one grows older.