Abstract
Using nationally representative survey of 4723 people aged 67 or older living in Norway, this paper explores the link between wellbeing, out-of-home activity participation and mobility in old age. A basic assumption of this paper is that out-home activities mediated through mobility can contribute to needs fulfillment, and, hence, wellbeing. This study explores the role of preferences, and individual and contextual constraints, in both the overall level of out-of-home activity participation in old age and the level of participation in three specific out-of-home activities (grocery shopping, visiting family or friends, and attending cultural activities). A person’s degree of home orientation is used as an indicator of preference for indoor activities. The findings suggest that age, living status, income, education, holding a driving license, health, social network, centrality of residence, and the quality of the public transport supply have a significant impact on the overall participation level. In addition, the study suggests that the types of constraints vary between travel purposes and the location of activities. Moreover, there is an independent effect of the degree of home orientation on the overall participation level, on the degree of visits to family and friends and on the degree of attending cultural activities, which suggest that people differ in their need for out-of-home activities. However, degree of home orientation has no impact on the degree of grocery shopping, which might imply that grocery shopping is more independent of preferences. The main conclusion from this study is that the extent to which out-of-home activities fulfill needs vary between individuals, depending on their preferences as well as the interplay between individual abilities and resources and contextual conditions.
Highlights
Older people in developed countries are healthier, wealthier and live longer than ever before, and the population in these countries is ageing
When controlling for various individual and contextual constraints for mobility, the findings suggest that the degree of home orientation plays an important role for the overall level of out-of-home activity participation in old age
The study shows that degree of home orientation has an independent effect on the extent of social visits and cultural activities when controlling for other factors, which might indicate that people have different preferences for these kinds of activities
Summary
Older people in developed countries are healthier, wealthier and live longer than ever before, and the population in these countries is ageing. As people age, they are more likely to experience problems with transport and daily travels (see, e.g., [5,6,7]). Many conditions strike people much later than they did a few decades ago, increased longevity implies that problems with transport will concern a large number of people in the decades, especially the oldest old (age 80 and older). Several studies have shown that travel in daily life, and being able to drive and to participate in out-of-home activities, are positively linked to wellbeing in old age [9,10,11,12,13], even though the conceptualization and operationalization of wellbeing varies greatly among these studies [14].
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