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Open Access 01-03-2010 | Original Investigation

Socioeconomic status and health in the second half of life: findings from the German Ageing Survey

Authors: Ina Schöllgen, Oliver Huxhold, Clemens Tesch-Römer

Published in: European Journal of Ageing | Issue 1/2010

Abstract

This study examined social inequalities in health in the second half of life. Data for empirical analyses came from the second wave of the German Ageing Survey (DEAS), an ongoing population-based, representative study of community dwelling persons living in Germany, aged 40–85 years (N = 2,787). Three different indicators for socioeconomic status (SES; education, income, financial assets as an indicator for wealth) and health (physical, functional and subjective health) were employed. It could be shown that SES was related to health in the second half of life: Less advantaged persons between 40 and 85 years of age had worse health than more advantaged persons. Age gradients varied between status indicators and health dimensions, but in general social inequalities in health were rather stable or increasing over age. The latter was observed for wealth-related absolute inequalities in physical and functional health. Only income-related differences in subjective health decreased at higher ages. The amount of social inequality in health as well as its development over age did not vary by gender and place of residence (East or West Germany). These results suggest that, in Germany, the influence of SES on health remains important throughout the second half of life.

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This scale assigns a value of 1 to the household head, of 0.5 to each additional adult member and of 0.3 to each child.

Because a large portion (about 60%) of our sample had two or more diseases, we did not use the criterion of two or more diseases (e.g. Avendano et al. 2005). This ensured comparability with the cut-off scores for the other two health indicators used here.

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Title: Socioeconomic status and health in the second half of life: findings from the German Ageing Survey
Authors: Ina Schöllgen
Oliver Huxhold
Clemens Tesch-Römer
Publication date: 01-03-2010
Publisher: Springer Netherlands
Published in: European Journal of Ageing / Issue 1/2010
Print ISSN: 1613-9372
Electronic ISSN: 1613-9380
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10433-010-0140-x

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Socioeconomic status and health in the second half of life: findings from the German Ageing Survey

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