A Comparison of Old Men and Women's Social Support, Life Satisfaction, Happiness and Depression

Aging is an important stage in life and with advances in science and health care the number of the old is increasing in different societies. This increase and our religious and cultural believes emphasizing venerating the old point to the significance of this study. The present study investigated old men and women’s differences in terms of social support، life satisfaction، happiness، and depression. This causal-comparative research sampled 379 old persons (200 men and 179 women) from the old living in Shiraz using convenience sampling. The participants completed three questionnaires; Philips’ “social support”، Diner’s “life satisfaction”، and Joseph & Lewis’ “happiness and depression”. A use was made of correlational matrix، multivariate variance analysis، and Fisher’s z to examine hypotheses 1&2، 3&4، and to answer question 1 respectively. The Results of the study showed that there was a significant relationship among all the variables and that there was a significant difference between the old men and women with respect to social support، happiness and depression، and life satisfaction.