Impact of Life Events on the Dynamics of Well-Being: Natural Experiments embedded in multiple time-scale Designs

Abstract

Session Abstracts: Lifespan theories of aging highlight the importance normative and non-normative life events have on how individuals function, develop, and age. In later adulthood, events such as the onset of severe illness or loss of a spouse may change both how individuals negotiate their daily lives and how they age. In this paper, we use a collection of natural experiments embedded in longitudinal panel (German SOEP) and experience sampling data (iSAHIB) to examine (a) how a variety of life events (e.g., marriage, birth of a child, onset of disability, relationship dissolution) contribute to shifts in individuals’ level of well-being (intraindividual mean), (b) how the occurrence or accumulation of life events contribute to greater or lesser ‘turbulence’ in well-being (intraindividual variation), and (c) how major life events provoke reorganization in system dynamics (intratraindividual covariation). Results elucidate the magnitude of functional plasticity flexibility of individual development across the life course.