Abstract
Objectives
Socioeconomic status (SES) relates to life satisfaction in old age, although the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Health and subjective social status have shown to be related to both SES and life satisfaction. This study aims to test the mediating role of health and subjective social status in old age, and to analyze if these potential mediations vary among three European countries with different socioeconomic characteristics and welfare regimes.
Method
The sample comprised 7,272 participants aged 50+ from COURAGE in Europe study, a household survey carried out in 2011–2012 on nationally representative samples from Finland, Poland, and Spain. A Multiple Indicators, Multiple Causes approach based on multi-group Structural Equation Modeling was implemented to test mediating effects.
Results
The structural invariance model showed an adequate fit (CFI = 0.971, RMSEA = 0.061). Health and subjective social status invariantly mediated the relationship between SES and life satisfaction across countries with different socioeconomic characteristics and welfare regimes. SES direct effects explained 0.83–0.85% of life satisfaction variance, whilst indirect effects explained 2.29–2.36% of life satisfaction variance via health, 3.30–3.42% via subjective social status, and 0.06% via both mediating variables.
Conclusion
Policies aimed at increasing the SES of the older adults may entail multiple benefits, resulting in better subjective social status, health, and life satisfaction outcomes, thus fostering healthy aging of the population.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Data availability statement
Data, analytic methods, and study materials are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.