Happiness at Older Agesmental well- being being most important. Physical health
and functional capacity play a somewhat larger role among
the older than younger participants, as problems in these do-
mains such as limiting long- standing illness or diminished
eyesight or mobility become more salient.
Gender Differences
Finally, we divided the sample into men and women to
investigate potential gender differences (Table 9.3). Inter-
estingly, while retirement has a positive association with
life- satisfaction in men, this is not true of women. Instead,
older age, higher income, and lower education are related
to higher life- satisfaction among women. Social and mental
health factors behave similarly in men and women, whereas
the influence of physical health (limiting long- standing
54– 64 65+
ADL difficulties −0.01 (.03) −0.05 (.02)
Hearing −0.001 (.016) −0.01 (.01)
Eyesight 0.03 (.02) 0.04 (.01)
Sleep quality 0.07 (.02) 0.08 (.02)
Impaired mobility −0.02 (.01) −0.02 (.01)
Urinary incontinence −0.04 (.05) −0.04 (.03)
Chronic pain 0.02 (.04) 0 (.03)
Sense of control W5 0.03 (.01) 0 (.01)
Cognitive function score W5 −0.007 (.003) −0.004 (.002)
Depressive symptom CES- D W5 −0.04 (.01) −0.07 (.01)
N 2,028 3,385
Adjusted R^2 0.37 0.30