AGE AND THE SENSE OF CONTROL

Two large random-sample surveys of adults age 18 and over show high, stable mean levels of perceived control in the age range 18 through 50, followed by successive steps down in progressively older age groups. Physical impairment and low education account for much of the low sense of control reported by older respondents. Education accounts for more of the age-group differences than does impairment. More than half of the age-group mean differences remain after adjustment. The results do not change substantially with added adjustment for other socioeconomic factors (race, sex, income, earnings, marital status, employment status) or other measures of physical aging (perceived health, malaise, aches and pains, exercise, and body weight). The relative importance of education suggests that intergenerational improvements in lifetime living and working conditions might account for much of the remaining association between old age and low sense of control.