Objective: we measured muscle strength and functional mobility in healthy men and women over the adult age range to investigate the changes with age and sex, and to establish the effects of the anthropometric indices height and weight. Design: cross-sectional study. Subjects and methods: we recruited 74 healthy women (mean age 49.0, range 20-90) and 81 healthy men (mean age 51.6, range 20-90). We measured maximum isometric knee extension strength, handgrip strength and explosive leg extensor power. We assessed functional mobility quantitatively with the timed 'get up and go' test and the modified Cooper test. Results: older subjects had lower values for muscle strength and muscle power than young subjects. Times for the timed 'get up and go' test were longer and distances in the modified Cooper test shorter. At about the age of 55, women showed an acceleration in the decline of isometric knee extension strength and handgrip strength (between 20 and 55 years, knee strength decreased by 10.3% and handgrip strength decreased by 8.2%, between 55 and 80 years the decreases were 40.2% and 28% respectively). Men showed a more gradual declines over the adult age range, with decreases in knee and handgrip strength of 24% and 19.6% between 20 and 55 years, and 23% and 17.4% between 55 and 80 years. The age-related decline is partly associated with differences in height and body weight. Women had higher correlations between muscle strength and functional mobility tests than men. Conclusions: muscle strength and functional mobility decline with age in healthy people; in women we observed an accelerated decrement in muscle strength above the age of 55. Lower values in healthy old subjects are partly associated with differences in height and body weight.

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Why does unemployment come in couples? An analysis of (un)employment and (non)employment homogamy tables for Canada, the Netherlands and the United States in the 1980s WOUT ULTEE, JOS DESSENS AND WIM JANSEN ABSTRACT In this paper we first raise the factual question of whether wives of unemployed husbands have a higher chance of unemployment than wives of employed husbands. Data for Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and the USA in the first half of the 1980s indicate that this indeed is the case. We then seek to explain this finding. According to one explanation, (un)employment homogamy is a by-product of educational homogamy combined with a relation at the individual level between education and unemployment. Although the existence of educational homogamy in Canada, the Netherlands and the USA could be ascertained, and although in these countries unemployment is higher when education is lower, these findings could not fully explain the observed extent of (un)employment homogamy in these countries. According to a more complex explanation, the phenomenon of (un)employment homogamy will disappear when we allow, after these effects of education, for similar effects of age and region. This explanation was tested for the USA, and did not explain the observed extent of (un)employment homogamy in this country either. These findings show that labour market inequalities (unemployed persons have less education, are very young or very old, live in certain places) are aggravated by marriage market outcomes (educational and age homogamy). But, in addition, the finding of persistent couple effects suggests that, apart from labour market and marriage market effects, other processes taking pl!).ce after marriage make for (un)employment homogamy.

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