Well-Being Trajectories of Middle-Aged and Older Adults and the Corona Pandemic: No "COVID-19 Effect" on Life Satisfaction, But Increase in Depressive Symptoms

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has led to profound changes in individuals' lives and might have meaningful implications for well-being. We investigated if and how two major indicators of well-being (life satisfaction and depressive symptoms) changed in Germany from a prepandemic measurement occasion (2017) to June/July 2020, the time of the fading first wave of COVID-19. This change was compared with prepandemic change between 2014 and 2017. We also analyzed whether change in well-being varied according to age, self-rated health, corona-specific attitudes, and subjective standard of living. Ten thousand seven-hundred and ninety three individuals had taken part in at least one of the measurement occasions between 2014 and 2020 (mean age in 2014: 64.30 years; SD = 11.58 years). Based on latent change score models controlling for baseline well-being and sociodemographic indicators, we found, across both time intervals (2014-2017, 2017-2020) and independent of individuals' age, a small mean-level increase in life satisfaction. In contrast, depressive symptoms increased from 2017 to 2020, particularly among older participants, whereas they remained, on average, stable between 2014 and 2017. Individuals with a poorer self-rated health, who felt more threatened by the pandemic and whose subjective standard of living was lower revealed a decrease in life satisfaction and a steeper increase in depressive symptoms between 2017 and 2020. Our findings thus suggest that whereas life satisfaction remained quite stable, the pandemic was, already 3-4 months after its onset in Germany, accompanied by an increase in depressive symptoms, particularly among adults who were older, felt less healthy and were more concerned about COVID-19.