This study examines how political constraints influence happiness using entropy balancing on data from 125 countries over the period 2006–2021. The findings reveal a positive and statistically significant relationship. A one-standard-deviation increase in political constraints (0.233) is associated with an approximate 0.10-unit increase in happiness, corresponding to a standardised effect of 0.092 standard deviations. While this absolute effect size is modest, as is typical for macro-institutional variables, it carries population-level relevance when contextualised within the subjective well-being literature. These results remain robust across alternative measures of political constraints, diverse model specifications, heterogeneity analyses, and alternative estimation methods. Finally, we identify political and economic freedom, control of corruption, the rule of law, income redistribution, and employment as the main channels through which political constraints affect citizens’ happiness.

As fertility decreases and singlehood increases, research is growing on the spread of ‘kinlessness’ – commonly defined as having neither a partner nor children – and its impact on the wellbeing of middle-aged and older adults. However, the beneficial impact of having partners and children may depend on the quality of those relationships. This study contributes to this research by integrating family structure types with different forms of parent–child contact – face-to-face, phone and digital. Using cross-sectional data from the European Social Survey tenth round (2020–2022) on 24,262 adults aged 50 or over in 30 European countries, we estimate ordered logistic regression models on the likelihood of reporting higher levels of happiness. The results show that men and women without a partner or children have lower levels of happiness compared to those that have both, with unpartnered parents occupying an intermediate position. Kinless men along with unpartnered parents with sporadic contact with children report the lowest level of happiness. Among unpartnered men, having frequent contact with children is associated with higher happiness levels than having infrequent interactions with them. We find no substantial differences between men and women in other family structure types, between different contact types or across European country clusters. The findings highlight the importance of considering both the presence/absence of children and the quality of their relationships in the analysis of middle-aged and older parents’ wellbeing.

Time perspective can shape how individuals experience life, influencing their wellbeing, perspectives and interactions with societal attitudes. This study explores the interconnections between time perspective, perceived ageism and subjective wellbeing (SWB) across the lifespan. Specifically, it aims to (1) compare time perspective, perceived ageism and SWB among three age cohorts across the lifespan; (2) analyse the influence of time perspective on SWB; and (3) examine whether perceived ageism moderates the relationship between time perspective and SWB. Data were collected from 884 Portuguese participants (aged 18–39, 40–59 and 60+) using various methods and subjected to multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVAs) and moderated regression analyses. Findings suggest distinct differences in time perspective, perceived ageism and SWB between the age cohorts. Future FTP-opportunity decreases with age, while FTP-limitation is higher among older adults. Negative and positive ageism are more prevalent among older adults, with positive ageism increasing with age, and satisfaction with life seems to be higher in middle age. Further, FTP-limitation increases negative affect and reduces positive affect and life satisfaction, while FTP-opportunity boosts both of them. Positive and negative ageism moderate these effects, with positive ageism weakening FTP-opportunity’s benefits and negative ageism intensifying its impact on affect and satisfaction with life. Understanding how perceptions of age and future opportunities shape SWB across life stages is crucial. The findings highlight the impact of ageism on both younger and older adults, emphasizing the need for an inclusive approach to age that promotes wellbeing and opportunities for individuals across the lifecycle.

This article investigates the life satisfaction consequences of migration through unique comparisons of “settler” migrants spanning three family generations and multiple European destinations with their “stayer” and “returnee” counterparts based in the origin country of Turkey. The data are drawn from 5,980 personal interviews conducted as part of the pioneering 2000 Families Survey. The results show that despite being monetarily the most impoverished across all destinations and generations studied, the settlers tend to be more satisfied with their lives than the “stayers” and the “returnees.” However, a downward trend is observed among younger generations, irrespective of their migration status and country context. The results confirm the significance of poverty and asset status for migrants’ and their descendants’ appraisal of life, as well as highlighting the independent effect of the context. Strikingly, however, those residing in countries with more generous welfare states proved not necessarily to be more satisfied.

This study addresses a significant knowledge gap in the literature by examining the relationship between religious involvement and subjective wellbeing (SWB) among older adults in Taiwan, a cultural context that has been underrepresented in existing research, with a focus on gender and age differences. Using data collected in Taichung City in 2017 (N = 645), this study measured religious involvement through religious affiliation, religiosity and frequency of religious participation, and assessed SWB via life satisfaction and happiness. Findings revealed no significant association between religious involvement and life satisfaction. However, religious participation was positively correlated with happiness. Gender differences were observed: Buddhism and Taoism were positively associated with life satisfaction among males, whereas religiosity and religious participation were significantly related to life satisfaction and happiness among females. Age disparities were also found, with religiosity significantly relating to both life satisfaction and happiness in the old-old group (70–89 years) but not in the young-old group (60–69 years). These findings highlight the nuanced associations between religious involvement and SWB, emphasising the importance of considering gender and age variations in future research. Future studies should further explore the cultural contexts that shape these relationships and examine other potential mediating factors to provide a more comprehensive understanding of how religious involvement influences wellbeing across different demographic groups.

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected working women’s well-being in different ways due to contrasting national responses. This article focuses on the specific context of Singapore, which implemented differentiated rules for workers: essential workers continued to report to workplaces, while non-essential workers were required to work from home. This policy had far-reaching implications for working women, who are more likely than husbands to juggle paid work and household duties. The article uses longitudinal data collected in 2018 and during the pandemic in 2020, specifically during Singapore’s lockdown period, to measure changes in 287 working women’s self-reported levels of stress, fatigue, and quality of interpersonal relationships by essential worker status. While all workers were affected by the pandemic, female essential workers were more likely than their non-essential peers to report declines in stress levels from 2018 to 2020, and less likely to report changes in spousal relationships, both positive and negative. Findings suggest that the differences were driven by exposure to quarantine conditions faced by non-essential workers. Our results highlight the importance of policies supporting frontline workers and more gender-equitable labour market policies to support married women juggling the twin demands of employment and household responsibilities.

The association between everyday activities, health and subjective wellbeing in older adults has mostly been examined using different activities as separate variables. Which activities are likely to come together in individuals’ daily time-use patterns, or in what context, has not yet been analysed. This study looks at a broad range of spontaneously reported activities, their location and social context to identify latent behavioural classes. The data used in the study came from a sample of 200 non-institutionalised adults aged 65 and above. Activity data were collected using the Experience Sampling Method. Generalised structural equation modelling was used to identify the classes. Three distinctive behavioural classes, representing different lifestyles, emerged: passive domiciliary, active functional and social recreational. They constituted 30, 53 and 17 per cent of the sample, respectively. Class membership was related to individuals’ age, education and selected dimensions of health measured using the Nottingham Health Profile: energy levels and emotional response. There was consistency between the objectively measured class and an individual's subjective assessment of their physical and emotional health. While both class membership and subjective wellbeing were associated with health, the relationship between class and wellbeing was weak and fully explained by socio-demographic and health-related variables.

How does the transition to retirement affect female subjective wellbeing? The major theoretical perspectives that have been applied as frameworks to study the heterogeneous adjustment to retirement include role theory and continuity theory. They have often been integrated with a lifecourse approach, which allows us to study retirement as a transition set inside a lifelong process. In this paper, I assess how working life courses are related to changes in subjective wellbeing before and after retirement, using data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) and concentrating on women. Firstly, I conduct sequence analysis and cluster analysis to identify groups of typical working lifecourses from ages 20 to 50. Secondly, regression models estimate how retirement transition is associated with changes in life satisfaction, according to the different working trajectories. The results show that some of the trajectories, constituted of discontinuity or part-time periods, exhibit a continuous increase in life satisfaction, passing from employment (or unemployment) to retirement. For other trajectories, such as the full-time one, retirement seems not to have implications for subjective wellbeing.

We analyse the relationship between individuals' subjective wellbeing (SWB) and measures of their country's sustainability. SWB data are sourced from the World Values Survey; sustainability is measured by ecological footprint (EF) and by components of the World Bank's adjusted net savings (ANS) series. ANS, a measure of weak sustainability, represents changes in a country's capital stock including financial, physical, human and natural capital. We show that an increase in strong sustainability, measured by EF and by ANS's natural capital component, is associated with reductions in SWB over the next decade followed by a rebound in SWB over the subsequent decade. We show also that the perfect substitutability assumptions on which ANS is calculated do not hold. Our findings highlight an important political challenge: governments that run sustainable policies may decrease the near-term wellbeing of citizens. This can reduce government's short-term popularity even though the improved sustainability may raise future wellbeing.

Subjective age (SA) is a core indicator of the individual ageing experience, with important consequences for successful ageing. The aim of the current study was to investigate the directions of the longitudinal associations between domains of SA and subjective wellbeing and physical functioning in the second half of life. We used three-wave survey data (2002, 2007 and 2017) spanning 15 years from the Norwegian Lifecourse, Ageing and Generation Study, including 6,292 persons born between 1922 and 1961. SA was measured with felt-age and ideal-age discrepancies, wellbeing with the Satisfaction of Life Scale and physical functioning with the Short-Form 12. Three-wave cross-lagged panel models were applied to assess the temporal relationships between the different domains of SA, life satisfaction and physical functioning, adjusted for age, gender and education. Findings indicated that wanting to be younger was negatively associated with life satisfaction and physical functioning over time. Felt-age discrepancies did not predict subsequent wellbeing or physical functioning. The results did not reveal any evidence for reversed effects, i.e. from functioning or life satisfaction to SA. Our findings support the psychological pathway from satisfaction with age(ing) to subjective wellbeing and physical functioning over time. Small ideal-age discrepancies reflect positive self-perceptions of ageing, which may help to accumulate psychological resources, guide behavioural regulation and support health.

This study investigates the relative importance of living with adult children and social participation for the elderly's subjective wellbeing (happiness) in three Chinese societies (Hong Kong, urban China and Taiwan). We use data from the 2011 wave of the Hong Kong Panel Study of Social Dynamics (N = 1,658), the 2010 China Family Panel Studies in mainland China (N = 3,198) and the 2010 wave of the Taiwan Social Change Survey (N = 790). The ordinary least squares regression shows that, as the family value of society moves forward on a traditional–modern continuum, the elderly benefit more psychologically from social participation and less from living with children. The older people in Hong Kong who live independently with a spouse are in a significantly better emotional state than those living with adult children. Social participation is positively associated with subjective wellbeing among the aged in Hong Kong but not among those in urban China and Taiwan. The findings suggest that encouraging social involvement is important for effective public policy to tackle rapid population ageing in Chinese societies.

This article investigates the determinants of preference for intergenerational co-residence and examines the effects of living arrangement concordance (i.e. having a match between preference and reality) on the subjective wellbeing (SWB) of older Chinese. Data were derived from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) national baseline conducted in 2011. This allows for two different measures of the affective approach to SWB: depression and happiness. This article found living arrangement preference is indicative of need, cultural norms and current living arrangement experiences. The results support the hypothesis of discrepancy theories that having living arrangement concordance improves older parents’ SWB (i.e. depressive symptoms and happiness). In addition, the previously predictive effects of the actual living arrangement on SWB lost significance when actual living arrangement and concordance were added simultaneously. Living in a preferred arrangement appears to be more important than living in a traditional arrangement from the point of view of older adults’ SWB. Programmes designed to improve wellbeing in later life should not assume that there is a one-size-fits-all model for all; instead, older people should be given more choices of living arrangements.

The aim of the present study was to examine the mediating effect of self-concordance on the relationship between internet altruistic behaviour (IAB) and subjective wellbeing (SWB). A total of 356 Chinese university students (159 males and 197 females) participated, using the questionnaires in the Internet Altruistic Behavior Scale (IABS), the Self-Concordance Scale (SCS) and the General Well-Being Schedule (GWBS). Correlation results indicated that IAB was positively correlated with self-concordance and SWB. The hierarchical regression analyses indicated that both IAB and self-concordance positively affect SWB. Moreover, IAB affected SWB indirectly via self-concordance, which confirmed self-concordance partially mediated the relationship between IAB and SWB. These findings extend the previous research on the association between altruism and SWB.

This study aims to assess racial differences in subjective wellbeing (SWB) and to examine whether the pathways of social support and social engagement to SWB vary by racial groups in the United States of America. Using a local sample (N = 1,035) and a nationally representative sample of the Health and Retirement Study (N = 7,718), we compared life satisfaction and happiness between non-Hispanic Whites and Blacks aged 55 and over. We evaluated the extent to which race, other socio-demographic characteristics, health, social engagement and social support explained the variances in SWB and examined the moderation effects of race on the relationships of SWB with age, social support and social engagement. Multiple regression analyses showed that non-Hispanic Blacks were at least as satisfied as, and even happier than White peers, after equalising social resources and health variables. Social support was significantly related to SWB, and it seemed that positive support was more important to Whites than to Blacks in predicting life satisfaction. In addition, the racial crossover effect existed, that is, the old-old (80+) Blacks were happier than their White peers. Findings indicate a national trend of the race paradox in SWB and underscore the importance of social support in promoting older adults’ wellbeing. Future research is recommended to investigate other potential mechanisms among Black older Americans to explain their relatively better SWB.

This paper examines the extent to which wellbeing levels change in the transition to retirement depending on transitioning from being employed, unemployed or economically inactive. Whereas transitioning from employment to unemployment has been found to cause a decrease in subjective wellbeing with more time spent in unemployment, it is not clear how transitioning from unemployment to retirement affects wellbeing levels. We use the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe to monitor the life satisfaction of respondents who retire in between two waves. We portray wellbeing scores before and after retirement and then identify the change in life satisfaction during the retirement transition using a First Difference model. Results indicate that being unemployed before retirement is associated with an increase in life satisfaction, but presents mainly a catching-up effect compared to employed persons transitioning to retirement. These results are still significant if we control for selection into unemployment and country differences. Retirement from labour market inactivity does not lead to significant changes in wellbeing. As the wellbeing of unemployed persons recovers after transitioning to retirement, especially the currently unemployed population should be supported to prevent detrimental consequences of economically unfavourable conditions and lower wellbeing.