Successful Ageing and its Relationship to Contemporary Norms. A Critical Look at the Call to “Age Well”

• Main Authors: Jessica Fagerström, Marja Aartsen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Université Catholique de Louvain 2013-07-01
• Series: Recherches Sociologiques et Anthropologiques
• Subjects: latent growth trajectories; older adults; successful ageing; well-being
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/rsa/918

Human ageing is inextricably bound to the loss of physical and cognitive functions, loss of social roles, and loss of social contacts, though losses in functioning and social roles not necessarily threatens the level of well-being according to older adults themselves. This paradoxical finding has fuelled the scientific and political arena for many years, and discussions about what is successful aging has not yet subsided. To investigate to what extend changes in various domains of functioning are related to changes in older adults’ perception of well being, we estimate fourteen year trajectories in both domains and estimate to what extend changes in these domains are interrelated. Based on data from the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam (n= 1257), we observed that ageing is associated with losses in multiple domains but decline in many functions is quite small. General well-being, on the other hand, does not decrease. Most striking finding was that there is only weak correlation between decline in domains of functioning generally considered as crucial for successful and decline in general well-being. Thus, aging successfully can be achieved even without doing well.