Are the Healthier Wealtier or the Wealthier Healthier?The European Evidence

Are the healthier wealthier or the wealthier healthier? Evidence from Europe presents an extensive and updated survey of the research findings on socio-economic inequalities in health in six European countries (Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Netherlands and United Kingdom). Three main questions are the focal points of this book : First, how does individual socio-economic and/or occupational status affect the physical and mental health and sense of well-being of older individuals of working age? Second, how does individual socio-economic and/or occupational status affect the ability of older workers to participate in the labour market? And third, how might policy initiatives be developed to enhance the effectiveness of welfare services for the older workforce? The primary focus of this work is to cover all the research done so far, including unpublished papers and those written in the national language of respective country. Each chapter reviews the empirical research carried out for that country, describes the available data, comments on the adopted estimation strategies and discusses methodological limitations of the reviewed studies, hence critically assessing their reliability. The results are surveyed and interpreted within their specific institutional context in order to facilitate comparison with the international evidence published in mainstream journals and surveyed in one of the chapters. This way, the reader is able to identify the knowledge gaps in each country and to also assess what could be learned from that particular countrys experience.