This study examines how caring for pets and walking, exercising, or playing with pets is associated with the experiential well-being of older Americans using activity-episode-level data from the 2010, 2012, and 2013 American Time Use Surveys (ATUS) and their associated Well-Being Modules (WBM). Estimating a series of ordered probit models that relate various measures of experiential well-being to different measures of pet-related activities, the results show that caring for pets is associated with greater meaning than other activities, controlling for a standard set of demographic and other person-level characteristics. Walking, exercising, or playing with household pets or animals is associated with greater happiness and meaning and less stress relative to other activities. The results from sensitivity analyses show that the magnitudes of the associations for people who live alone are larger than for those who live with others.

这项研究使用2010年，2012年和2013年美国时间使用情况调查（ATUS）的活动记录水平数据，研究了照料宠物以及散步，运动或与宠物玩耍如何与老年人的体验幸福感相关联。他们相关的幸福感模块（WBM）。估计了一系列有序的概率模型，这些模型将各种体验幸福度与宠物相关活动的不同量度相关联，结果表明，与其他活动相比，照料宠物具有更大的意义，同时控制着一组标准的人口统计数据和其他人的水平特征。与其他宠物或动物一起散步，锻炼或玩耍可以带来更多的幸福感和意义，而与其他活动相比，压力较小。