IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ese/iserwp/2013-30.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

In sickness and in health? Comorbidity in older couples

Author

Listed:
  • Booker, Cara L.
  • Pudney, Stephen

Abstract

We investigate the nature and origin of comorbidity, defined as the tendency of members of marital couples to display correlated patterns of ill-health in later life. In the absence of long-term prospective data on couples, we use long-range recall data from the pan-European SHARELife survey and estimate a latent variable model of the health states of marital part- ners in childhood, early adulthood and late adulthood. We find strong persistence in health states and a strong comorbidity correlation, attributable almost equally to homogamy in relation to early health and common factors operating within marriage.

Suggested Citation

  • Booker, Cara L. & Pudney, Stephen, 2013. "In sickness and in health? Comorbidity in older couples," ISER Working Paper Series 2013-30, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:ese:iserwp:2013-30
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/research/publications/working-papers/iser/2013-30.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pudney, Stephen, 2011. "Perception and retrospection: The dynamic consistency of responses to survey questions on wellbeing," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(3-4), pages 300-310, April.
    2. Janet Currie, 2009. "Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise: Socioeconomic Status, Poor Health in Childhood, and Human Capital Development," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 87-122, March.
    3. David Blanchflower & Andrew Oswald & Sarah Stewart-Brown, 2013. "Is Psychological Well-Being Linked to the Consumption of Fruit and Vegetables?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 114(3), pages 785-801, December.
    4. Meyler, Deanna & Stimpson, Jim P. & Peek, M. Kristen, 2007. "Health concordance within couples: A systematic review," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 64(11), pages 2297-2310, June.
    5. Danilo Cavapozzi, 2008. "Health and Labor Supply Dynamics of Older Married Workers," "Marco Fanno" Working Papers 0073, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche "Marco Fanno".
    6. Philip Oreopoulos & Mark Stabile & Randy Walld & Leslie L. Roos, 2008. "Short-, Medium-, and Long-Term Consequences of Poor Infant Health: An Analysis Using Siblings and Twins," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 43(1).
    7. K. R. Narayanan, 1954. "Freedom in Modern Society," India Quarterly: A Journal of International Affairs, , vol. 10(4), pages 376-381, October.
    8. Bound, John & Schoenbaum, Michael & Stinebrickner, Todd R. & Waidmann, Timothy, 1999. "The dynamic effects of health on the labor force transitions of older workers," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 179-202, June.
    9. Gabriella Conti & Stephen Pudney, 2011. "Survey Design and the Analysis of Satisfaction," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(3), pages 1087-1093, August.
    10. Disney, Richard & Emmerson, Carl & Wakefield, Matthew, 2006. "Ill health and retirement in Britain: A panel data-based analysis," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 621-649, July.
    11. Douglas Almond & Janet Currie, 2011. "Killing Me Softly: The Fetal Origins Hypothesis," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 25(3), pages 153-172, Summer.
    12. Iris Kesternich & Bettina Siflinger & James P. Smith & Joachim K. Winter, 2014. "The Effects of World War II on Economic and Health Outcomes across Europe," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 96(1), pages 103-118, March.
    13. Bengt Muthén, 1984. "A general structural equation model with dichotomous, ordered categorical, and continuous latent variable indicators," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 49(1), pages 115-132, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    More about this item

    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:ese:iserwp:2013-30. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Jonathan Nears). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/rcessuk.html .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.