Who Are the Worst-Off? Objective, Subjective, and Preference-Based Approaches to Measure Older Adults’ Well-Being

Abstract

Assessing the well-being of older adults requires a multidimensional framework, yet combining dimensions into a single summary measure raises conceptual and methodological challenges. This study examines whether objective, subjective, and preference-based aggregation strategies identify the same individuals as worst-off when applied to the same dimensions. Using survey data from 813 individuals aged 50 and older in Flanders, Belgium, we compare well-being across health, social relations, income, leisure, engagement, and religion. The objective approach applied equal weights, the subjective approach relied on self-rated life vignettes, and the preference-based approach incorporated respondents’ priorities through a factorial survey experiment. The three methods yielded substantially different identifications of the worst-off. The greatest divergence was between the objective and subjective approaches, while the preference-based approach aligned somewhat more closely with the objective one but still differed. The objective and preference-based approaches tended to identify worst-off groups with lower educational attainment and greater disadvantages in physical health, whereas the subjective approach identified a group with relatively higher educational attainment but poorer mental health outcomes. These findings highlight that the choice of aggregation strategy crucially shapes well-being comparisons and the identification of vulnerable groups in later life.