An anatomy of old-age disability: Time use, affect and experienced utility.
Complementing the commonly used concepts of evaluative wellbeing and decision utility, emotional wellbeing and experienced utility are important welfare criteria to assess individuals' subjective wellbeing, especially for valuing health and disability. Yet, almost all empirical evidences on the link between disability and experienced wellbeing come from developed countries. This paper studies the relationship between old-age disability and experienced utility in five low- and middle-income countries. Using data on individual time use and activity-specific affective experiences from an abbreviated version of the Day Reconstruction Method, we document a strong negative association between disability and experienced utility. These differences in experienced utility by disability status are exclusively due to worse activity-specific affective experiences among persons with disabilities. By contrast, disability-related differences in time use provide small compensating effects. Interventions or technologies that facilitate daily life hold most promise to improve experienced utility among persons with disabilities in the developing world.
Institute of Health Economics and Management (IEMS), Department of Economics (DEEP), Faculty of Business and Economics (HEC), University of Lausanne, Switzerland. Electronic address: gabriela.flores@unil.ch.
Gabriela
G
Flores
IEMS, DEEP, HEC, University of Lausanne, Switzerland. Electronic address: michael.ingenhaag@gmail.com.
Michael
M
Ingenhaag
IEMS, DEEP, HEC, University of Lausanne, Switzerland; Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA), Munich, Germany; Center for Economic and Social Research (CESR), University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA; RAND Corporation, Washington DC, USA; Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), Switzerland. Electronic address: jurgen.maurer@unil.ch.
Jürgen
J
Maurer
D000203:Activities of Daily Living / Q000523:psychology*; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology / Q000523:psychology*; D003906:Developing Countries; D006233:Persons with Disabilities / Q000523:psychology*; D005191:Family Characteristics; D005260:Female; D014943:Global Health / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D017059:Models, Econometric; D010549:Personal Satisfaction; D011788:Quality of Life / Q000523:psychology*; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013997:Time Factors; D014944:World Health Organization
Disability; Experienced utility; Low-and middle-income countries; Time use; Wellbeing