The structure of subjective well-being in middle adulthood.

Subjective well-being (SWB) is at the centre of much ageing research due to its relationship to such important outcomes as health, morbidity and successful ageing. This paper discusses essential problems associated with its definition, measurement and dimensionality. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were computed for data from the Interdisciplinary Longitudinal Study of Adult Development in order to assess whether SWB is a unidimensional or a multidimensional construct. The results suggest that SWB is unidimensional.