Aging, Family Relations and Well-Being in Chile

Abstract

This article aims to describe the level of the elderly people’s well-being in Chile, measured as general satisfaction with life and emotional well-being, and to test a hypothetical model of the associated factors. It analyses varios representative face to face surveys on elderly chileans The results of regression analysis confirm that life conditions are one of the more important predictors of well-being, but the variation in this measure in old age is better explained if we incorporate other factors, such as the quality of family relations and self-efficacy.

Appendix

1.1 Variables Included in the Regression Analysis

• Perception of available support: index that quantifies the availability of four kinds of supports (company to run errands; help in case of illness; company in case of feeling alone; company in case of feeling sad). In Chile the perception of available support is very high, where in this sample only 3 % does not have any type of support, 28 % has up to 3 supports, 73 % has the four supports. Due to this distribution, we dichotomized the variable in: 0 = 0–3 supports, 1 = all the supports.

• Household composition: (1) Lives alone; (2) Lives only with his/her couple; (3) Lives with other people, mainly corresponds to families where more than one generation coexist (grandparents, sons, daughters, grandchildren). The respective Dummy variables are constructed, considering “living alone” as reference category.

• Index of family affection: It is a scale of perceptions about the quality of family relations that averages the responses to the following questions with three response categories (1. Yes, often, 2. Sometimes, 3. Never): (1) Do you feel that your relatives love you less than what you expect? (2) Do you feel that you family see you like an obligation? (3) Do you feel that your family does not understand you? (4) Do you feel that your family does not care about you? The index behaves in a one-dimension way, with factorial weights over 0.53, and with values that goes from 1 (low affection) to 3 (high affection), with Cronbach’s alpha of 0.78.

• Index of family conflict: It is a scale of perceptions of the quality of family relations that averages the responses to the following questions with three response categories (1. Yes, often, 2. Sometimes, 3. Never): (1) Do you feel that some of your relatives abuses you; (2) Do you feel that in your family there are people that make you feel extremely stressed; (3) Do you feel that your relatives meddle a lot in your affairs. This is a one-dimensional index, with factorial weights over 0.48, and with values that goes from 1 (more contention) to 3 (less contention), and with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.60.

• Health perception: this was measured with the indicator “Would you say that your health is…”, which was categorized into three groups: 1 = “good”, “very good” or “excellent” perceived health; 2 = “regular health”; 3 = “poor health” (reference category).

• Perception of income; this was measured with the question “does your income meet your requirements?”, with three categories: yes comfortably, yes fairly or no. In relation with well-being, there is a clear difference between not having enough income and the perception that income is enough, although not “fair”. So, we decided to dichotomize it in: 0 = not enough and 1 = enough (fairly or comfortably).

• Perception of self-efficacy; this combines two questions: (i) “How able have you felt to face difficult situations in recent years: very able, little able or unable?”; (ii) “In this last year have you felt confident that if you make the effort, you will achieve what you want: quite often, sometimes or almost never?”. Value 0 = considered to have low self-efficacy when the person is “unable” or “little able” to face difficult situations and/or is almost never confident that if they make the effort, they will achieve what they want; 1 = other values