The Study of Elderly Life Happiness

Abstract

This research, the descriptive research, aims to: 1) Explore the elderly’s happiness and 2) Investigate factors affecting the happiness of elderly. The pilot study is carried out in 3 areas and uses multi-stage sampling. Stage 1 uses purposive sampling to select 3 areas; Muang, Ban Laem and Kao Yoi districts. Stage 2 uses systematic random sampling to select the elderly’s household in each
district. And Stage 3 selects every elderly people up to ethic criterion to get proportional to size. The selection yields sample size 60, 41 and 31 for Muang, Ban Laem and Kao Yoi districts. The questionnaire includes 2 parts, general data and 6point scale of Likert uses to measure happiness of elderly people. Since statistical test shows non-normality data, the researchers use non-parametric statistics including Chi-square test, Independent Mann-Whitney U test, and Independent Sample Kruskal-Wallis test. The statistical significance level for the hypothesis test is .05. The results show that: 1) Overall, the
elderly’s happiness level is an average of 3.67, which is categorized as moderate and 2) In terms of factors affecting the happiness level of the elderly in the community, It is found that the variables area, age, marital status, level of education, and revenue, affect the elderly’s happiness level significantly. The results from this research can be used as guideline for elderly care and find intergeneration perception patterns in community toward happiness of elderly life.