AbstractIn recent decades, the well-being of elderly has drawn considerable attention especially on subjective well-being. Many social topics have been studied from different environmental levels in ecological perspectives, but elders' subjective well-being has not yet been discussed with multilevel environmental factors. The primary objective of this study was to investigate the predictors for subjective well-being of American elderly on three levels: individual characteristics, family attributes, and neighborhood social relationships. Data from General Social Survey 2008 cross-sectional was used for analysis. Ordinal logistic regression was used to examine the effects of selected individual, family and neighborhood variables on subjective well-being of elderly.The results indicated that married elderly in the sample were more likely to have higher subjective well-being than unmarried group. The analysis also demonstrated that family financial situation and frequencies of church participation were strong predictors of elderly subjective well-being controlling individual, family and neighborhood related factors. The findings in the study will contribute to gain a better understanding of influential factors of elderly subjective well-being among all levels variables, and will help social service professionals and policy makers in their effort to improve the quality of life of the elderly.
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