Well-BOA: Development and application of a new survey instrument to measure well-being in old age.

The rapid aging of our societies poses enormous policy challenges. To evaluate aging policies and measure well-being in old age, policy makers and researchers need an operational yardstick of well-being. Since well-being is a multidimensional notion, one needs to weight the outcomes in the different well-being dimensions. Existing well-being measures for older persons typically use a common weighting scheme for all individuals and are thereby neglecting differences in older persons' view on what is important in life. The first objective of this research project will be to develop a multidimensional well-being measure for older persons with respect for individual variation in opinions on the good life. Such a "preference-based" approach requires data about the view on the "good life". The second objective of this project will be to construct a survey instrument, called Well-BOA (Well-Being at Old Age), that allows us to obtain reliable information on the view on the "good life" of older persons in a simple and direct way. The survey instrument will be tested in a series of on-line survey experiments and implemented among a representative sample of the LISS panel and the SHARE survey. Finally, we aim to explore two ways in which the results can help to improve policies: first, by identifying the "worst-off" and, second, by providing a measurement toolbox that is sensitive to inequality of well-being among the older population.

Keywords:SOCIOLOGY

Disciplines:Welfare economics, Social gerontology and sociology of ageing