Aging & Society: Eighth Interdisciplinary Conference

Abstract

The growth in the number of older persons within Taiwan and Japan creates considerable challenges relating to the aging experiences across countries. Although older age is easily complicated by comorbidities, older adults in different cultures are exposed to different social and medical environments and are shaped with variant resilience. The aging experiences between Taiwanese and Japanese in terms of life satisfaction and depressive symptoms are not known. This study analyzes participants enrolled in the 1996 Taiwan Longitudinal Study on Aging (TLSA, N=5,131), the National Survey of the Japanese Elderly (NSJE, N=2,429), and their follow-up data every three to four years till 2007. Results show that Japanese seniors initially show a melancholy (Taiwan: 4.288, Japan: 8.112) relative to the elderly in Taiwan, but their satisfaction with life is similar (Taiwan: 2.127, Japan: 2.207). However, changes in the elderly in Taiwan did not significantly improve melancholic scores, while it slightly increased for older Japanese. Life satisfaction increased during aging in Taiwanese elderly but decreased in Japanese elderly. The effect of generations also affects the psychological well-being of the elderly in Taiwan and Japan. In terms of depressive symptoms, the elderly in Taiwan over seventy-six years on average increased by about three points and the elderly in Japan increased by about one point. Depressive symptoms of the elderly in Taiwan is mainly influenced by generation rather than aging, while the Japanese melancholy is affected by age and generation.