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The purpose of this study was to examine the associations between productive engagements and the psychological wellbeing of older adults in the U.S by analyzing cross-sectional data from a secondary dataset. Specifically, this paper analyzed the associations of 4 different types of productive engagements including current work status, caregiving to the family members, volunteering and religious strengths with the psychological wellbeing as an outcome variable.
Methods
Data and sample: Study used the data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). The HRS is a nationally representative prospective longitudinal cohort study has been conducting biennial survey since 1992 to community-dwelling individuals 50 years of age or older on diverse issues. This analysis was based on 2016 wave (cross-sectional) of the HRS dataset and the data collection period was April 2016 through August 2017.The samples were recruited from a multistage, national area-clustered probability sampling frame. Measures: Four different variables were considered as the predicting variables in this analysis. Firstly, current working status was a binary variable that measured by 0=Yes and 1= No. Second and third variables were respectively caregiving and volunteering and both of them were measured by; 0=Regularly, 1= Irregularly. Finally, find in strength was measured by 0= Agree and 1= Disagree. Outcome (Wellbeing) variable was measured by 0= High level of wellbeing, 1= Low level of wellbeing. Control variables including age was measured in years, education in the categories of 0=Low level of education, 1= Higher level of education and sex r in the categories 0=male, 1= female.
Analysis and Results
Beside the descriptive statistics, binary logistic regression analyses were applied to examine the association between independent and dependent variables. The results showed that among the four independent variables, three of them including working status (OR: .392, p<.001), volunteering (OR: .471, p<.003) and strengths in religion (OR .588, p<.003) were significantly associated with psychological wellbeing while controlling for age, gender and education factors. Also, no significant association was found between the caregiving engagement of older adults and their psychological wellbeing outcome.
Conclusions and Implications
Findings of this study are mostly consistent with the previous studies except the caregiving engagements and their impact on older adults wellbeing outcome. Therefore, the findings support the proactive initiatives from different micro to macro level to facilitate opportunities of productive engagements for the older adults and all of these may ultimately benefit their psychological wellbeing and life satisfaction in later life.