Developing the Russian Index of Elderly Population Well-Being: Principles and Conceptual Framework

Abstract

As a multi-faceted process population aging generates various socio-economic and psycho-physiological challenges and significantly influences the government socio-economic policy. It requires the development and practical application of new assessment tools based on the economic and sociological data statistics to describe the current state of the society specifying variables and indicators relevant to the measurement and management of the main aspects of older people well-being. The article presents a comparative analysis of methods to assess such complex socio-economic and psycho-physiological phenomena as the elderly population's well-being. The study focuses on the research trends in the development of the elderly population well-being evaluation tools and composite indices as well-being of older people assessment techniques. The paper addresses the evolution of the concept “well-being of the elderly population” together with the evolution of the term “well-being” itself with the latter one closely connected to the concept of human development. The authors draw on the causes of interest for comparative assessment methodologies of the well-being of elderly generation against the backdrop of the global trends of demographic aging of the world population. As assessment tools joining a set of objective and subjective indicators in one evaluation scale, composite indices are researched as comparative methods for the purpose of well-being analysis. They are described in terms of their decomposition into domains and indicators. Finally, the paper formulates the principles of development of the Russian Elderly Well-being Index and analyses the possible domains for the elderly population well-being assessment.