Aging well? Social spending, age, and subjective wellbeing across Europe

The association between age and subjective wellbeing has been examined across different samples and observational time frames, most often indicating a decline in subjective wellbeing with age or a U-shaped relation. Although various contextual variables have been examined as moderators of this relation, the moderating effect of social spending has not been investigated so far. Given that social spending is potentially beneficial for wellbeing and that social spending in Europe is primarily elderly-oriented, we assumed that in countries with higher social spending expenditures, there is a more positive effect of age on subjective wellbeing. We used cross-sectional hierarchical linear modelling (HLM) analysis and the data from the ninth round of the European Social Survey, including 29 countries. Our results show that age is generally negatively related, while age squared is positively related to subjective wellbeing, indicating a U-shaped relation between age and wellbeing. Additionally, social spending at the aggregate level is a significant determinant of wellbeing at the individual level. Most importantly, social spending is a significant positive moderator of this association: with increasing social spending levels, aging is more positively related to wellbeing.