Multiple Roles and Psychological Well-being in a National Sample of Older Adults

Activity theory and the role enhancement hypothesis predict that multiple role involvement in late life is linked to greater psychological well-being, but the disengagement hypothesis and the role change hypothesis anticipate a negative association between these variables. In this study, the association between multiple roles and psychological well-being is tested among adults age 60 and over from a national sample. Three measures of well-being are regressed on background variables, number of roles (from among employee, spouse, parent, volunteer, homemaker, grandparent, caregiver, and student), and interaction terms. Multiple roles are associated with higher life satisfaction and self-efficacy and lower depressive symptoms. A significant interaction shows larger regression coefficients for roles among men than women on life satisfaction, and a three-way interaction indicates a stronger association of roles with self-efficacy for Black men than the other three gender-ethnicity combinations. Findings support the role enhancement hypothesis and the activity perspective among older adults.