Morale of the Urban Aged: a Regression Analysis by Race

This research examined the degree to which previous factors shown to be related to morale were isomorphic for aged whites and aged blacks. The data consisted of a random sample of low income aged blacks and whites in Philadelphia and were collected by the late Donald P. Kent as part of the Aged Services Porject and consisted of 722 black elderly and 214 white elderly, all of whom were 65 years of age or older. The results of a regression analysis indicated that for blacks the only two significant predictors of morale were health and participation in solitary activities. For whites, in addition to health and solitary activities, interaction with family and sex were also found to be significant. It was concluded that for these data the predictors are not isomorphic between races.