Purpose: The present study aimed to verify the hypothesis that "independent older adults with a high level of general self-efficacy perform more productive activity than others."

Methods: Independent older adults aged 70 years or older residing in Hachinohe City, Aomori Prefecture, Japan, were surveyed. The survey was made using anonymous, self-administered questionnaire forms presented face-to-face to participants. The survey period was June through September of 2016. "Productive activity" comprised three domains: paid work, unpaid work in the home, and unpaid work outside the home. Whether each of these activity types was practiced was input as an objective (response) variable via forced entry; binomial logistic regression analysis was used to analyze the association of the variables with various factors, including general self-efficacy.

Results: The result of logistic regression analysis showed that the ratio of people with unpaid work outside home was significantly greater in the group with high rather than low general self-efficacy. Meanwhile, no relationship was observed between explanatory values other than general self-efficacy and the three variables indicating productive activity.

Conclusion: It was suggested that, among independent older adults, there is more unpaid work performed outside the home with higher levels of self-efficacy.