AARP’s Lark McCarthy talks to Mary Jo Peterson, interior design consultant, and Andrew Carle, founding director of the program in Senior Housing Administration at George Mason University, about cutting-edge housing trends that may become more popular and available in the near future.
This post provided by Gilbert & Sheppard Group
Surveys consistently show that Americans aged 65 or older are happier than younger adults. The 2010 General Social Survey, for example, found that 33 percent of people aged 65 or older were “very happy” compared with 28 percent of younger adults. The GSS measures happiness by asking a single, simple question. Other surveys probe people’s feelings of happiness more extensively, by measuring it throughout the day and during a variety of activities. These studies confirm the greater happiness of older Americans. Why?
Entire books are devoted to this topic. One of them (Measuring the Subjective Well-Being of Nations: National Accounts of Time Use and Well-Being) solves the mystery.
To get at what makes people happy, well known Princeton economist Alan B. Krueger (the editor of the book) and author of one of the chapters (along with Daniel Kahneman, David Schkade, Norbert Schwarz, and Arthur A. Stone), measures the percentage of time in which people’s feelings of sadness, stress, or pain exceed their feelings of happiness–all by demographic characteristic and activity. The results show that people aged 65 or older spend only 16 percent of their time with feelings of sadness, stress, or pain greater than their feelings of happiness. In contrast, people aged 25 to 64 feel bad rather than good a larger 20 percent of the time. By controlling for activity, the researchers nailed it: older Americans are happier because they spend more time engaging in activities that generate happiness (socializing, relaxing, gardening). Working-age adults must work, after all. Most of the happiness gap between older and younger adults is due to differences in their daily activities.
This post provided by Gilbert & Sheppard Group
The list of the largest senior living providers is out and Emeritus Senior Living was named the largest assisted living provider, with 46,777 resident capacity according to the Assisted Living Federation of America (ALFA).
The next largest operators are Sunrise Senior Living and Brookdale Senior living with 28,131 and 27,568 resident capacity respectively.
The rankings include the top 80 private and publicly-traded senior living companies and provides a good look at the players in the senior housing sector. This year, the list also includes information on independent living and memory care communities.
“The senior living business continues to grow and evolve to serve the growing number of seniors and their families seeking residential services and care for themselves or loved ones,” said Richard P. Grimes, President and CEO of the Assisted Living Federation of America, “The Largest Senior Living Providers list fills an important informational gap for senior living executives and is a powerful tool for everyone with a stake in the senior living industry. Many of our members have now embraced senior living, so as a result ALFA has also broadened its advocacy and business excellence initiatives to serve senior living, inclusive of assisted living, and the seniors and families our members serve.”
