Life Satisfaction and Attitudes toward the Future: A Comparison by Age, Sex, and Area of Residence

This study was concerned with evaluations people make regarding their present satisfaction and happiness, and with their attitudes toward the future. Measurements were not limited to objective circumstances in which people live. The individual’s subjective sense of well-being, or the quality of life, was the desired information, and this quality is not found by measuring income, size of residence, or a unit of time—though well-being may be related to such variables. This study sought to determine aspects of present satisfaction as well as those aspects of satisfaction or of worry which people think will apply to them in their later years. This study analyzed data collected from an urban population and a rural population of Nebraskans in a research project funded by the Nebraska Agricultural Experiment Station.The data were gained from a questionnaire designed to determine demographic data, self perceptions of significant life events, attitudes towards the future, and life satisfaction.Some of the conclusions the study made were that there were statistically significant differences between life satisfaction for rural and urban residents and that there was a statistically significant relationship between life satisfaction and age.These are only two of several conclusions made by this study in regarding life satisfaction and attitudes toward the future. Advisor: John DeFrain