Abstract
The purpose of this study was to compare the most important life events reported by U.S. and Japanese centenarians. This study included a population-based sample of 239 U.S. centenarians from the Georgia Centenarian Study and 304 Japanese centenarians from the Tokyo Centenarian Study. Two open-ended life events questions were categorized and grouped into different life event domains. Several cross-tabulations were computed to investigate culture and gender differences in most important life event domains. Next, four configural frequency analyses were conducted using Neuroticism, Extraversion, and the first most often mentioned life event domain for each sample (i.e., marriage and historical life events). Results suggest that events related to marriage were the most frequent important event domains mentioned by U.S. centenarians. The Japanese sample was more likely to report historical events. Men from the U.S. were more likely to report events related to work and retirement compared to U.S. women, and U.S. women reported events related to family as the most important life events when compared to U.S. men. Japanese women considered events related to marriage, death and grief as the most important life events when compared to Japanese men. In addition, Japanese men reported events related to work and retirement as the most important life events. A cross-cultural difference was found in life events: U.S. centenarians were more likely to mention positive experiences related to marriage and children, whereas Japanese centenarians reported mostly negative and traumatic experiences such as historical, death/grief, and work/retirement events.
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Acknowledgments
The Georgia Centenarian Study (Leonard W. Poon PI) was funded by 1P01AG17553 from the National Institute on Aging, a collaboration among The University of Georgia, Tulane University Health Sciences Center, Boston University, University of Kentucky, Emory University, Duke University, Wayne State University, Iowa State University, Temple University, and University of Michigan. Additional authors include S. M. Jazwinski, R. C. Green, M. MacDonald, M. Gearing, W. R. Markesbery (deceased), J. L. Woodard, M. A. Johnson, J. S. Tenover, I. C. Siegler, W. L. Rodgers, D. B. Hausman, C. Rott, A. Davey, and J. Arnold. Authors acknowledge the valuable recruitment and data acquisition effort from M. Burgess, K. Grier, E. Jackson, E. McCarthy, K. Shaw, L. Strong and S. Reynolds, data acquisition team manager; S. Anderson, E. Cassidy, M. Janke, and J. Savla, data management; M. Poon for project fiscal management.
The Tokyo Centenarian Study was supported in part by a grant from the Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare for the Scientific Research Project on Longevity, a grant for studying the multidisciplinary approach to centenarians and its international comparison (Principal Investigator, Nobuyoshi Hirose); a grant from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Science and Culture (No.15730346); and aid for research from the Keio Health Consulting Center.
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da Rosa, G., Martin, P., Gondo, Y. et al. Examination of Important Life Experiences of the Oldest-Old: Cross-Cultural Comparisons of U.S. and Japanese Centenarians. J Cross Cult Gerontol 29, 109–130 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10823-014-9223-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10823-014-9223-z