Linking Elderly Transport Mobility and Subjective Well-Being

Abstract

Mobility is critical for social integration in a complex urban society and essential to the maintenance of life satisfaction and well-being. Subjective well-being has recently become a topic of interest within the transportation research community. This paper aims to understand the fundamental linkages between subjective well-being or happiness and transport mobility–travel behavior of the elderly population. The research here is based on data from the Supplement on Disability and Use of Time for 2009, which specifically targeted senior couples with an average age of 68. With the use of scores to a set of satisfaction questions about life, health, memory, finances, and marriage, latent class clusters are estimated. This estimate leads to four distinct clusters of respondents that depend on the degree of happiness in each of the satisfaction questions. With the membership of each cluster as a dependent variable, ordered probit and multinomial logistic regression models are estimated to study the relationship between clusters and individual characteristics, including sociodemographics, activity patterns, time use, and use of active modes (walking–bicycling). The results show that respondents who engage in activities out of the home, socialize, and enjoy better mobility also report higher levels of subjective well-being leading to a better quality of life. The model findings also show that illness and pain are related to lower well-being and that quality of life in older age is correlated to mobility.

Elderly travel frequencies and transport mode choices in Greater Rotterdam, the Netherlands

“…When looked at the effects of mobility resources, in contrast to some existing studies that stress the societal isolation of elderly who do not have access to a car (e.g. Ravulaparthy et al 2013), we do not observe an effect of car ownership on trip frequency. An explanation could be that in the Netherlands the car is not as dominant as it is in other western countries.…”

“…While studies emphasise the importance of the elderly's mobility for their social inclusion (e.g. Ravulaparthy et al 2013) and quality of life (e.g. Delbosc and Currie 2011;Haustein and Siren 2014), concerns are being raised regarding the implications of this induced automobility to society, in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, environmental pollution and congestion (e.g.…”

Driving self-regulation and ride service utilization in a multicommunity, multistate sample of U.S. older adults

“…Contrary to expectations expressed in earlier studies (Rudman et al 2006; Yassuda et al 1997), it appears that a substantial proportion of people who enroll in an alternative transportation service do not use it to meet all of their transportation needs. Earlier studies also showed that engaging in activities out of the home and socializing are related to a better quality of life for older adults (Ravula-parthy et al 2013) and that driving cessation is associated with a moderate to severe impact on the older adult’s family or caregivers (Azad et al 2002). This study showed that, though older adults use a door-through-door transportation service for social and consumer rides, they are more likely to use the service for medical rides.…”

Should we all just stay home? Travel, out-of-home activities, and life satisfaction

“…More discretionary trips, for leisure and recreational purposes for example, are often not taken at all (Coughlin, 2001;Cvitkovich and Wister, 2001;Davey, 2007;Marottoli et al, 2000;Mollenkopf et al, 2011;Siren and Hakamies-Blomqvist, 2004). A number of studies go further and provide empirical evidence for the causal path from reduced mobility to curtailed out-of-home activity participation to poorer life quality (Banister and Bowling, 2004;Gabriel and Bowling, 2004;Gagliardi et al, 2007;Hildebrand, 2003;Ravulaparthy et al, 2013;Windsor et al, 2007). Spinney et al (2009) find a clear link between out-of-home activity time and happiness among elderly Canadians.…”