Health and income across the life cycle and generations in Europe

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in AbstractAn age-cohort decomposition applied to panel data identifies how the mean, overall inequality and income-related inequality of self-assessed health evolve over the life cycle and differ across generations in 11 EU countries. There is a moderate and steady decline in mean health until the age of 70 or so and a steep acceleration in the rate of health deterioration beyond that age. In southern European countries and in Ireland, which have experienced the greatest changes in economic and social development, the average health of younger generations is significantly better than that of older generations. This is not observed in the northern European countries. In almost all countries, health is more dispersed among older generations indicating that Europe has experienced a reduction in overall health inequality over time. Although there is no consistent evidence that health inequality increases as a given cohort ages, this is true in the three largest countries -Britain, France and Germany. In the former two countries and the Netherlands, at least for males, the income gradient in health peaks around retirement age, as has been found for the US, but this pattern is not observed in the other countries. In most European countries, unlike the US, there is no evidence that income-related health inequality is greater among younger than older generations. JEL Classification: D30, D31, I10, I12

The socioeconomic health gradient across the life cycle: What role for selective mortality and institutionalization?

“…While the underlying mechanisms leading to this pattern have not been well understood, it has also been reported for the US by Smith (2004). Van Kippersluis et al (2010) also find that cohort effects in the SES health gradient are absent in the Netherlands, thereby confirming earlier findings with other Dutch survey data (van Kippersluis et al 2009). …”

“…This may cause the observed decline in self-reported health to underestimate the decline as observed in other, more objective measures, as demonstrated by e.g. van Kippersluis et al (2009), also on Canadian data. Our concern here, however, is with the differential life cycle health patterns by income.…”

“…This combination of methods has not featured in the literature on selective attrition and the SES health gradient before, but has been used in related fields (e.g. van Kippersluis et al 2009). The aggregated approach consists of transforming the set of repeated cross-sections into a panel dataset of age-groups, thereby allowing for the identification of life cycle effects.…”

Socio-economic inequalities in C-reactive protein and fibrinogen across the adult age span: Findings from Understanding Society

“…However, van Kippersluis et al . found no consistent cohort effects on income-related inequalities in health for the UK 5 . Although further longitudinal research is needed to elucidate these issues, our study highlights the importance of considering a wide age span in the case of the SEP inequalities in health.…”

Desigualdades en la salud autopercibida de la población española mayor de 65 años

“…Estos datos también se confirman en Europa mediante las encuestas de salud en personas mayores, en países de muy diversas estructuras políticas y económicas [41][42][43][44][45] .…”