Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
AbstractThis study aims to examine Ihe relationship between bilingualism and subjective well-being among elderly Hispanics. Bilingualism is viewed as the abilily to communicate in both English and Spanish. Subiective well-being includes positive affect and lack of negative affect. The study uses data from the 1988 national survey on elderly Hispanics. A sample of 632 elderly bilinguals whose first language was Spanish was selected for the analyses. LISREL 7 was used to test the correlations among two dimensions of bilingualism and two dimensions of subjective well-being. Both first-order confirmatory factor analysis and second-order confirmatory factor analysis reveal that languages and psychological well being correlated in expected directions. More importanlly, the study found that elderly Hispanics who had a stronger bilingual ability had a better psychological status. It is suggested that the social work profession can play an important role in helping recently arrived immigrants and refugees to learn English and to preserve their own language.
Thanh V. Tran (Thu,) studied this question.