Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, Vol 50, Issue 1 S35-S44, Copyright © 1995 by The Gerontological Society of America

ARTICLES

A cross-cultural study of the subjective well-being of married elderly persons in the United States and India

MM Venkatraman
Department of Health Services, School of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of Washington.

Systematically comparable data on married elders from the United States (n = 567; ages 60 +) and Madras, India (n = 207; ages 55 +) and simultaneous factor analyses (LISREL) were used to test the cross-cultural metric and structural invariance of a model of the influence of emotional social support from role relationships (adult children, spouse, and friends and relatives) on subjective well-being, based on social support and interactional role theories. Except for cross-cultural differences in measurement error variances, the model showed a high degree of invariance across the two samples. Americans and Indians were unexpectantly similar in terms of the influence of emotional social support from role relationships on their subjective well-being. The discussion explores why cross-culturally similar relationships exist between emotional support and subjective well-being for married elders in two such apparently different societies.

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