What is the relationship between financial satisfaction and happiness among older people?

Summary findings from this report:

• Countries where those aged 50 and above report high levels of financial satisfaction are also likely to report high levels of happiness - of the ten countries reporting the highest levels of financial satisfaction, eight also feature among the ten ‘happiest’.
• There is a continuous relationship between increasing age and both increasing financial satisfaction and decreasing happiness (without controlling for other factors).
• Significant proportions of the variation in both self-reported financial dissatisfaction and unhappiness among the over 50s can be attributed to the country that an individual lives in (both before and after controlling for individual-level predictor variables).
• New Zealand and Sweden were the ‘happiest’ nations (97%), while the Swiss were the most satisfied with their finances (87%).
• The multilevel models show that being divorced or separated; being unemployed; having low levels of education; self-categorising yourself as lower class and having no savings are strong predictors of both being dissatisfied with your household’s financial situation and reporting being unhappy.
• Over-50s who see themselves as lower-class have almost three times the odds of being unhappy, and are five times more likely to be dissatisfied with their financial situation.
• After taking account of individual-level predictor variables, both GDP per capita and geographical grouping are significant country-level predictors of both self-reported happiness and self-reported financial satisfaction.
• European countries that have previously had communist regimes are likely to report low levels of both self-reported financial satisfaction and happiness, with older Georgians feeling the least financially satisfied (12%), and Moldova ranking as the unhappiest nation for older people (33%).

What is the relationship between financial satisfaction and happiness among older people? (PDF, 780kB)