Grandchild Care and Grandparents' Well-Being in Context: The Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background And Objectives: This study investigates whether the association between supplementary grandchild care and grandparents' subjective well-being-measured as life satisfaction, perceived stress, and loneliness-is moderated by the contextual environment. We use the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic as an example of contextual differences. Drawing on role theory, we argue that the costs and benefits of grandparenting may have differed between pandemic and prepandemic times.

Spousal bereavement and its effects on later life physical and cognitive capability: the Tromsø study.

Spousal bereavement is associated with health declines and increased mortality risk, but its specific impact on physical and cognitive capabilities is less studied. A historical cohort study design was applied including married Tromsø study participants (N=5739) aged 50-70 years with baseline self-reported overall health and health-related factors and measured capability (grip strength, finger tapping, digit symbol coding, and short-term recall) at follow-up. Participants had data from Tromsø4 (1994-1995) and Tromsø5 (2001), or Tromsø6 (2007-2008) and Tromsø7 (2015-2016).

Personality and 10-year personality development among Norwegians in midlife-Do retirement and job type play a role?

Our personality develops over the whole lifespan and in particular when our life circumstances change. Retirement is a life event that brings changes in identity, day structures, and social roles of former workers. Therefore, it may affect personality traits such as the Big Five (neuroticism, extraversion, intellect, conscientiousness, and agreeableness).

Understanding loneliness in late life.

Loneliness in late adulthood is a public health issue. Thus, understanding the etiology of loneliness is of critical importance. Here, we conceptualize the development of loneliness in late life as dynamic interactions between individual and contextual processes.

The Risks of Experiencing Severe Loneliness Across Middle and Late Adulthood.

Objectives: From a theoretical point of view, older adults may not necessarily face a greater risk of becoming lonely than middle-aged adults but are more likely at a disadvantage in fighting loneliness. Therefore, in this study, we differentiate between the risk of becoming lonely and the risk of remaining lonely.

Methods: A large longitudinal data set representative of the German noninstitutionalized population from 40 to 85 years of age (N = 15,408; 49% female participants) was used in the analysis.

Historical and Cross-Country Differences in Life Satisfaction Across Retirement in Germany and Switzerland From 2000 to 2019.

Objectives: Recent trends, such as changes in pension systems or cohort differences in individual resources, have altered the face of retirement transitions. Little is known about how these trends have affected older people's life satisfaction around retirement age in the past decades. In this study, we investigated how levels and changes in life satisfaction before and after retirement changed over historical time in Germany and Switzerland.

Younger Than Ever? Subjective Age Is Becoming Younger and Remains More Stable in Middle-Age and Older Adults Today.

Little is known about historical shifts in subjective age (i.e., how old individuals feel).

Rethinking Social Relationships in Adulthood: The Differential Investment of Resources Model.

Empirical evidence about the development of social relationships across adulthood into late life continues to accumulate, but theoretical development has lagged behind. The Differential Investment of Resources (DIRe) model integrates these empirical advances. The model defines the investment of time and energy into social ties varying in terms of emotional closeness and kinship as the core mechanism explaining the formation and maintenance of social networks.

Subjective well-being across the retirement transition-Historical differences and the role of perceived control.

Given substantial cohort differences in psychosocial functioning, for example in perceived control, and ongoing pension reforms, the context of retirement has changed over the last decades. However, there is limited research on the consequences of such developments on historical differences in subjective well-being (SWB) in the retirement transition. In the present study, we investigated historical differences in change in life satisfaction and positive affect across the retirement transition.

Digitalisation and Employees' Subjective Job Quality in the Second Half of Working Life in Germany.

Unlabelled: Since digitalisation alters occupational task profiles via automation processes, job quality is also likely to be affected. While existing literature mainly focusses on objective job quality, this study asks if and how digitalisation is associated with employees' subjective job quality in the second half of working life in Germany. Analyses are based on the German Ageing Survey 2014.

Towards bridging the grey digital divide: changes in internet access and its predictors from 2002 to 2014 in Germany.

The internet is an indispensable aspect of modern society. It facilitates long distance communication, access to information, health care interventions, as well as multiple opportunities for social participation. Despite increasing pervasiveness of this technology, persistent inequalities exist in who has access to the internet.

The Increasing Importance of Friendship in Late Life: Understanding the Role of Sociohistorical Context in Social Development.

Historically, family ties have been understood as the primary source of support for aging adults, and past empirical and theoretical work has highlighted the tendency of older adults to focus on close family. However, in line with demographic changes and historical increases in the diversity of social structures, friendships are increasing in importance in recent generations of older adults. Given the powerful role of context in shaping these changes, this paper offers a conceptual analysis linking individual agency to sociohistorical context as a way to understand this increasing diversity of social ties.

The Strength of Weaker Ties: An Underexplored Resource for Maintaining Emotional Well-Being in Later Life.

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to examine dynamic links between changes in social ties and changes in emotional well-being.

Method: Trivariate dual-change score models were used to test whether a large number of close ties would be more strongly associated with low levels of depressed affect than a large number of weaker ties, and a large number of weaker ties would be more strongly associated with high levels of positive affect compared to a large number of close ties, across three waves of a large, regionally representative sample of U.S.

Exploring the Reciprocal Associations of Perceptions of Aging and Social Involvement.

Objective: Positive perceptions of aging are known to have beneficial effects for older adults' health and well-being, but less is known regarding their social correlates. The current study aimed to disentangle the bidirectional associations of perceptions of aging with informal and formal social involvement.

Method: Data for this study came from the 2008 and 2014 waves of the German Ageing Survey (DEAS).

Gauging effects of historical differences on aging trajectories: The increasing importance of friendships.

For a long time, life span psychologists have theorized that individual development is partially shaped by an everchanging historical context. For example, it has been hypothesized that the historically increasing flexibility of constructing social networks may influence the social development of adults into late life. To date, however, there is no established method in psychological science that allows researchers to easily gauge the effects of historical differences in time-varying covariates on aging trajectories, which are also subject to historical change.

The role of historical change for adult development and aging: Towards a theoretical framework about the how and the why.

The role of historical change for individual functioning and development has long been a central feature of life span psychological and life course sociological theory. However, the mechanisms underlying how historical change in contexts shapes individual functioning and development are less well understood. To better understand such open questions, we present the HIDECO (HIstorical changes in DEvelopmental COntexts) theoretical framework to structure and integrate potential pathways of historical change in (a) population distributions of key resources for successful aging, (b) social and family life, (c) modern technological and scientific progress, and (d) Zeitgeist and norms including societal definitions of social roles, attitudes, and age norms.

Level and change in economic, social, and personal resources for people retiring from paid work and other labour market statuses.

Well-being in retirement is thought to depend on person's level of resources and how his or her resources change during retirement. However, to date few studies have directly investigated resource trajectories during retirement. The current study therefore examines how economic, personal, and social-relational resources change during the retirement transition for people retiring from paid employment and for people retiring from other, non-working labour market statuses (e.

The Changing Relationship Between Partnership Status and Loneliness: Effects Related to Aging and Historical Time.

Objectives: Partnership status is a central predictor of loneliness. The strength of this predictive relationship, however, may decrease in the course of aging and over historical time. Moreover, there may be aging-related and historical changes in the satisfaction with partnership and singlehood.

Pathways to retirement: Are they related to patterns of short- and long-term subjective well-being?

We examine the association between pathways to retirement and patterns of subjective well-being in Germany. We argue that short-term development of subjective well-being is related to social status changes while long-term development of subjective well-being is related to resources and changes in life circumstances. Importantly, we expect that how a person's social status changes and his/her access to resources post-retirement both depend on the person's specific pathway to retirement, resulting in distinct patterns of subjective well-being post-retirement.

Age-related changes in emotional qualities of the social network from middle adulthood into old age: How do they relate to the experience of loneliness?

Research shows that people maintain fewer social ties and social activities when they grow older. There appears, however, to be little variation in the average loneliness level from middle adulthood into old age. In this study we investigate to what extent beneficial changes in emotional qualities of the social network (SNW; number of distressing relationships, number of pleasant relationships, relationship satisfaction) may help to prevent an age-related increase in loneliness.

Do Demographic Changes Jeopardize Social Integration among Aging Adults Living in Rural Regions?

Objectives: Contextual influences of the living environment on the social integration of adults have been primarily studied cross-sectionally. Here, we argue that context (i.e.

Cohort Difference in Age-Related Trajectories in Network Size in Old Age: Are Networks Expanding?

Objectives: Contemporary societal views on old age as well as a rise in retirement age raise the question whether patterns of stability and/or decline in network size as found in earlier studies similarly apply to later birth cohorts of older adults.

Methods: Change score models are estimated to determine cohort differences in age-related trajectories in network size. Two birth cohorts (1928-37 and 1938-47, 55-64 at baseline in 1992 and 2002) of the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam are followed across 4 observations over a time span of 9 years.

Do the antecedents and consequences of loneliness change from middle adulthood into old age?

Loneliness is a stressful experience that appears to interfere with health and social integration (SI). Recently, researchers proposed that both antecedents and consequences of loneliness may change across the life span. To fully understand the processes related to loneliness it may thus be crucial to adopt an age-differentiated perspective.

Perceived Control and Social Activity in Midlife and Older Age: A Reciprocal Association? Findings From the German Ageing Survey.

Objectives: Perceived control may promote social activity in older adults because individuals with greater perceived control have greater confidence in their ability to achieve outcomes and are more likely to choose difficult activities, show persistence, and employ strategies to overcome challenges. Cross-sectional research has linked perceived control with social activity in life span and older adult samples but provides little insight into the direction of influence. We examined reciprocal associations between perceived control and social activity in order to establish temporal sequencing, which is one prerequisite for determining potential causation.

Predictors of Self-Rated Health: Does Education Play a Role Above and Beyond Age?

Objectives: Previous studies have demonstrated that while health factors lose importance for the individual conceptualization of self-rated health (SRH) with advancing age, subjective well-being (SWB) factors gain in importance. The present study examined whether this age-related pattern differs between educational groups.

Method: Longitudinal data of adults aged 40 years and older of the German Ageing Survey was used (N = 6,812).