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The European Journal of Health Economics
Published in: The European Journal of Health Economics 5/2018

Open Access 01-06-2018 | Original Paper

The relationship between diabetes, diabetes-related complications and productive activities among older Europeans

Authors: B. Rodriguez-Sanchez, R. J. M. Alessie, T. L. Feenstra, V. Angelini

Published in: The European Journal of Health Economics | Issue 5/2018

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Abstract

Aims

To assess the impact of diabetes and diabetes-related complications on two measures of productivity for people in the labour force and out of it, namely “being afraid health limits ability to work before retirement” and “volunteering”.

Methods and data

Logistic regressions were run to test the impact of diabetes and its complications on the probability of being afraid health limits work and being a formal volunteer. The longitudinal sample for the former outcome includes 53,631 observations, clustered in 34,393 individuals, aged 50–65 years old whereas the latter consists of 45,384 observations, grouped in 29,104 individuals aged 65 and above across twelve European countries taken from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, from 2006 to 2013.

Results

Diabetes increased the probability of being afraid health limited work by nearly 11% points, adjusted by clinical complications, and reduced the likelihood of being a formal volunteer by 2.7% points, additionally adjusted by mobility problems. We also found that both the probability of being afraid health limits work and the probability of being a formal volunteer increased during and after the crisis. Moreover, having diabetes had a larger effect on being afraid health limits work during the year 2010, possibly related to the financial crisis.

Conclusions

Our findings show that diabetes significantly affects the perception of people regarding the effects of their condition on work, increasing the fear that health limits their ability to work, especially during the crisis year 2010, as well as the participation in volunteering work among retired people.
Appendix
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Footnotes
1
We did not include individuals younger than 65 in the analysis of volunteering since it could be considered as a substitute for a paid job, which would complicate the analysis.
 
2
According to the responses to the employment status question from the survey, only 2% of the people aged 65+ are employed or self-employed, whereas almost 85% are retired and another 11.5% declared themselves as homemakers.
 
3
Moreover, the Wald test confirms that the diabetes and time dummies are jointly significant and Model C is the model that better fits the data.
 
4
Moreover, the Wald test confirms that the interactions are not jointly significant, so that Model B is thus the best for explaining the association between the set of explanatory variables and the outcome.
 
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Metadata
Title
The relationship between diabetes, diabetes-related complications and productive activities among older Europeans
Authors
B. Rodriguez-Sanchez
R. J. M. Alessie
T. L. Feenstra
V. Angelini
Publication date
01-06-2018
Publisher
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Published in
The European Journal of Health Economics / Issue 5/2018
Print ISSN: 1618-7598
Electronic ISSN: 1618-7601
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10198-017-0911-9

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