Social Wellbeing of Older Adults in Britain and Russia through the Prism of Social Challenges

Abstract

The paper considers the peculiarities of social well-being of older adults who represent the generation of baby boomers. The baby boom generation consists of people born during the demographic post–world war II baby boom between the years 1946 and 1964 in Britain and in Russia. Approaches to the research of wellbeing among Russian and foreign scientists are presented. Social wellbeing is a great concern in social philosophy. Several social challenges are described to form possible dimensions of social wellbeing. The author emphasizes a dichotomy of social well-being, considering external and internal determinants. The author analyzes social well-being through a prism of social difficulties (social integration, social acceptance, social contribution, social actualization, social coherence) that form the model of social well-being. The potential benefits of social life are a sense of belonging, social integration and a sense of shared consciousness. Comparing how older adults of Britain and Russia overcome difficulties and adapt to the new social realities, the author comes to a conclusion that subjective factors define the readiness of older adults to shift to a new level and influence their ability to cope with social difficulties.