The Role of Residential Setting on Subjective Well-being of Elderly: an Exploratory Study

Elderly (aged 60 years and above) often face the challenge of coping with a variety of physical, psychological, and social problems. Sometimes they have to take decisions for their living arrangements and sometimes they have to change their residential set ups and have to move from home to old age home. Such changes have direct bearing for well-being. This study explored the changes in subjective well-being of elderly due to shift in residential arrangements.  To this end a sample of elderly was drawn from three government recognized old age homes (n=44) and compared with a group of elderly living in family homes (n=43) in Lucknow city in north India. The subjective well-being inventory (SWBI) was used as tool to obtain the relevant data. Data of the two groups of elderly was analyzed considering SUBI factor list and comparison of mean was done employing SPSS-15. Elderly of old age homes shown comparatively less satisfaction on positive items of SUBI and revealed more worried than their counterpart residing in their own home.