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Abstract
Like our monograph on the well-being of Canada's young adults, this study combines indicators of well-being in the three major domains of life - personal well-being, community or altruistic well-being, and religious or spiritual well-being - in order to produce an overall measure of well-being. Rough measures of each component, plus their component indices and an overall well-being index, are developed for seniors aged 55 and over in the year 2000, using the best available micro-data from Statistics Canada.
Each well-being index has a potential maximum of 100 and minimum of 0. The overall well-being index is 50 for Canada's seniors, (it is 41 for young adults aged 15 to 34, and 45 for the all adults aged 15 plus) about the same for senior women and men, and younger (aged 55 to 64) and older seniors. Some of the findings are as follows...
- The index ranges from 47 in British Columbia and 49 in Quebec, to 61 in Prince Edward Island, and 54 to 56 in the other Atlantic provinces and Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
- It is relatively high, over 60, for all types of volunteers, especially volunteers in religious organizations, 78, and religious and secular organizations, 80, and a relatively low 35 for those who do not donate to charity, 35, and those without ever having a religious affiliation, also 35. Those without a present religious affiliation, but with a religious background during their youth, also have a low index, 45. Among the larger faith communities, the index is highest for Lutherans, 65, followed by Baptists, 60, Pentecostals, 58, Catholics outside Quebec, Anglicans, United Church affiliates and Presbyterians in the 54 to 56 range, non-Christian faiths, 53, and Quebec Catholics, 50; smaller Christian faiths called conservative Christian have a relatively high index of 61. Seniors with a religious background have an index of 59, compared with 46 among their counterparts without a religious background. The index of senior women is over 10% higher than that of men in New Brunswick, and among single never married women; the index for men is over 10% higher than that for women among the religiously unaffiliated seniors.
- For Canada, the personal well-being index of seniors comprises 46% of the overall well-being index, while the altruism index comprises 19% and the spiritual index 35% -- these shares of the total reflect in part the weights assigned to the components of each of the index, as well as the choice and definition of the component indicators.
Detailed tables supplemented by summary charts are presented showing the component indicators, personal, altruistic and spiritual well-being indices, and the overall well-being index (Table 16), for many subpopulations of senior women and men. Regression results for each of the six component indicators, life satisfaction and worry over finances, the components of personal well-being; volunteer time and charitable donations, the components of community well-being or altruism; and religiosity and worship frequency, the components of spiritual well-being; are presented in appendices, for women and men separately. Both the concept and measures of well-being proposed in this study should be regarded as very approximate; another biblical approach to the definition and procedures promoting well-being, based in part on the use of time, is suggested by Jeremy Taylor in 1650, and is summarized in the Appendix.