A cross-cultural study of the subjective well-being of married elderly persons in the United States and India.

Systematically comparable data on married elders from the United States (n = 567; ages 60+) and Madras, India (n = 207; ages 55+) and simultaneous factor analyses (LISREL) were used to test the cross-cultural metric and structural invariance of a model of the influence of emotional social support from role relationships (adult children, spouse, and friends and relatives) on subjective well-being, based on social support and interactional role theories. Except for cross-cultural differences in measurement error variances, the model showed a high degree of invariance across the two samples. Americans and Indians were unexpectedly similar in terms of the influence of emotional social support from role relationships on their subjective well-being. The discussion explores why cross-culturally similar relationships exist between emotional support and subjective well-being for married elders in two such apparently different societies.