IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nim/nimawp/67-2017.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Growing old, unhealthy and unequal: an exploratory study on the health of Portuguese individuals aged 50+

Author

Abstract

In this study we provide evidence on the health status and the role of gender and socioeconomic inequality in self-reported health and morbidity status amongst the elderly in Portugal. We find a negative self-perception of health status amongst the elderly; high prevalence of chronic diseases since an earlier age; high level of depression problems reported by women; and high levels of disability amongst the oldest old. There are, nonetheless, substantial differences in health status between age groups that suggest a potential for health gains in the future. The prevalence of chronic diseases, mental problems and high disability requires an adequate (re)organization of healthcare delivery to the elderly. Moreover, the evidence presented clearly calls for a gendered perspective on health policy, particularly in mental health policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Isabel Correia Dias & Priscila Ferreira & Lígia Costa Pinto & Marieta Valente & Paula Veiga, 2017. "Growing old, unhealthy and unequal: an exploratory study on the health of Portuguese individuals aged 50+," NIMA Working Papers 67, Núcleo de Investigação em Microeconomia Aplicada (NIMA), Universidade do Minho, revised Jun 2018.
    • Handle: RePEc:nim:nimawp:67/2017
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www3.eeg.uminho.pt/publications/NIMAwp67.pdf
    File Function: full text
    Download Restriction: none
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Erik Hanushek & Stephen Machin & Ludger Woessmann (ed.), 2011. "Handbook of the Economics of Education," Handbook of the Economics of Education, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 4, number 4, June.
    2. Fredrik Gregersen, 2014. "The impact of ageing on health care expenditures: a study of steepening," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 15(9), pages 979-989, December.
    3. Giorgio Brunello & Margherita Fort & Nicole Schneeweis & Rudolf Winter‐Ebmer, 2016. "The Causal Effect of Education on Health: What is the Role of Health Behaviors?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(3), pages 314-336, March.
    4. Eddy van Doorslaer & Xander Koolman, 2004. "Explaining the differences in income‐related health inequalities across European countries," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(7), pages 609-628, July.
    5. Stephane Jacobzone & E. Cambois & E. Chaplain & J. M. Robine, 1999. "The Health of Older Persons in OECD Countries: Is it Improving Fast Enough to Compensate for Population Ageing?," OECD Labour Market and Social Policy Occasional Papers 37, OECD Publishing.
    6. D. Cooper & W. D. McCausland & I. Theodossiou, 2008. "Unemployed, uneducated and sick: the effects of socio‐economic status on health duration in the European Union," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 171(4), pages 939-952, October.
    7. Contoyannis, Paul & Jones, Andrew M., 2004. "Socio-economic status, health and lifestyle," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(5), pages 965-995, September.
    8. Peter Zweifel & Stefan Felder & Markus Meiers, 1999. "Ageing of population and health care expenditure: a red herring?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 8(6), pages 485-496, September.
    9. Lindgren, Björn, 2016. "The Rise in Life Expectancy, Health Trends among the Elderly, and the Demand for Health and Social Care," Working Papers 142, National Institute of Economic Research.
    10. Gary Solon & Steven J. Haider & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2015. "What Are We Weighting For?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 50(2), pages 301-316.
    11. repec:dau:papers:123456789/10510 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Bjorn Lindgren, 2016. "The Rise in Life Expectancy, Health Trends among the Elderly, and the Demand for Care - A Selected Literature Review," NBER Working Papers 22521, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Paula Veiga, 2005. "Income-related health inequality in Portugal," NIMA Working Papers 28, Núcleo de Investigação em Microeconomia Aplicada (NIMA), Universidade do Minho.
    14. Arber, Sara & Ginn, Jay, 1993. "Gender and inequalities in health in later life," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 33-46, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Keegan, Conor & Brick, Aoife & Bergin, Adele & Wren, Maev-Ann & Whyte, Richard & Henry, Edward, 2020. "Projections of expenditure for public hospitals in Ireland, 2018–2035, based on the Hippocrates Model," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number RS117, June.
    2. Heger, Dörte & Kolodziej, Ingo W.K., 2016. "Changes in morbidity over time: Evidence from Europe," Ruhr Economic Papers 640, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    3. Lassila, Jukka & Valkonen, Tarmo, 2019. "Alternative Demography-based Projection Approaches for Public Health and Long-term Care Expenditure," ETLA Working Papers 74, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
    4. Albarrán, Pedro & Hidalgo-Hidalgo, Marisa & Iturbe-Ormaetxe, Iñigo, 2020. "Education and adult health: Is there a causal effect?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 249(C).
    5. Kai Hong & Peter A. Savelyev & Kegon T. K. Tan, 2020. "Understanding the Mechanisms Linking College Education with Longevity," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 14(3), pages 371-400.
    6. Pedro Albarran Pérez & Marisa Hidalgo Hidalgo & Iñigo Iturbe-Ormaetxe Kortajarene, 2017. "Schooling and adult health: Can education overcome bad early-life conditions?," Working Papers. Serie AD 2017-09, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    7. Fabio Pammolli & Francesco Porcelli & Francesco Vidoli & Monica Auteri & Guido Borà, 2017. "La spesa sanitaria delle Regioni in Italia - Saniregio2017," Working Papers CERM 01-2017, Competitività, Regole, Mercati (CERM).
    8. Colombo, Emilio & Rotondi, Valentina & Stanca, Luca, 2018. "Macroeconomic conditions and health: Inspecting the transmission mechanism," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 29-37.
    9. Fendel Tanja, 2016. "Migration and Regional Wage Disparities in Germany," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 236(1), pages 3-35, February.
    10. Meyer, S.C. & Künn-Nelen, A.C., 2014. "Do occupational demands explain the educational gradient in health?," Research Memorandum 016, Maastricht University, Graduate School of Business and Economics (GSBE).
    11. Leandro Prados de la Escosura, 2023. "Inequality Beyond GDP: A Long View," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 69(3), pages 533-554, September.
    12. Strulik, Holger, 2018. "The return to education in terms of wealth and health," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 12(C), pages 1-14.
    13. Leandro Prados de la Escosura, 2021. "Augmented human development in the age of globalization," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 74(4), pages 946-975, November.
    14. Andreas Lichter & Max Löffler & Sebastian Siegloch, 2021. "The Long-Term Costs of Government Surveillance: Insights from Stasi Spying in East Germany," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 19(2), pages 741-789.
    15. Hofmarcher, Thomas, 2021. "The effect of education on poverty: A European perspective," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    16. Gershenson, Seth & Holt, Stephen B. & Papageorge, Nicholas W., 2015. "Who Believes in Me? The Effect of Student-Teacher Demographic Match on Teacher Expectations," IZA Discussion Papers 9202, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Pedro Rosa Dias, 2009. "Inequality of opportunity in health: evidence from a UK cohort study," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(9), pages 1057-1074, September.
    18. Harpa S. Eyjólfsdóttir & Neda Agahi & Johan Fritzell & Carin Lennartsson, 2022. "Physical functioning as a predictor of retirement: Has its importance changed over a thirty-year period in Sweden?," European Journal of Ageing, Springer, vol. 19(4), pages 1417-1428, December.
    19. Friedrich Breyer & Normann Lorenz, 2021. "The “red herring” after 20 years: ageing and health care expenditures," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 22(5), pages 661-667, July.
    20. Balia, Silvia & Jones, Andrew M., 2008. "Mortality, lifestyle and socio-economic status," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 1-26, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ageing; health status; inequality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
    • I14 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Inequality
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nim:nimawp:67/2017. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: NIMA (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://nima.eeg.uminho.pt/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.