IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/geronb/v69y2014i6p973-978..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Socioeconomic Disparities in Health Among Older Adults and the Implications for the Retirement Age Debate: A Brief Report

Author

Listed:
  • Anna Zajacova
  • Jennifer Karas Montez
  • Pamela Herd

Abstract

Objective. Policy debates about raising the full retirement age often neglect socioeconomic health disparities among U.S. workers. In response to this gap, we analyzed educational differentials in health among middle-age and older adults and translated the findings into age equivalents.

Suggested Citation

  • Anna Zajacova & Jennifer Karas Montez & Pamela Herd, 2014. "Socioeconomic Disparities in Health Among Older Adults and the Implications for the Retirement Age Debate: A Brief Report," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 69(6), pages 973-978.
  • Handle: RePEc:oup:geronb:v:69:y:2014:i:6:p:973-978.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/geronb/gbu041
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John Bound, 1989. "Self-Reported vs. Objective Measures of Health in Retirement Models," NBER Working Papers 2997, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Deaton, Angus S & Paxson, Christina H, 1998. "Aging and Inequality in Income and Health," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(2), pages 248-253, May.
    3. Anna Zajacova & Noreen Goldman & German Rodriguez, 2009. "Unobserved Heterogeneity Can Confound the Effect of Education on Mortality," Mathematical Population Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(2), pages 153-173.
    4. Schoeni, R.F. & Martin, L.G. & Andreski, P.M. & Freedman, V.A., 2005. "Persistent and growing socioeconomic disparities in disability among the elderly: 1982-2002," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 95(11), pages 2065-2070.
    5. Liu, Hui & Hummer, Robert A., 2008. "Are Educational Differences in U.S. Self-Rated Health Increasing?: An Examination by Gender and Race," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 67(11), pages 1898-1906, December.
    6. Linda G. Martin & Robert F. Schoeni & Vicki A. Freedman & Patricia Andreski, 2007. "Feeling Better? Trends in General Health Status," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 62(1), pages 11-21.
    7. Arline Geronimus & John Bound & Timothy Waidmann & Cynthia Colen & Dianne Steffick, 2001. "Inequality in life expectancy, functional status, and active life expectancy across selected black and white populations in the United States," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 38(2), pages 227-251, May.
    8. Scott Lynch, 2003. "Cohort and life-course patterns in the relationship between education and health: A hierarchical approach," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 40(2), pages 309-331, May.
    9. Groot, Wim & Maassen van den Brink, Henriette, 2007. "The health effects of education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 186-200, April.
    10. Mossey, J.M. & Shapiro, E., 1982. "Self-rated health: a predictor of mortality among the elderly," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 72(8), pages 800-808.
    11. Zajacova, Anna & Rogers, Richard G. & Johnson-Lawrence, Vicki, 2012. "Glitch in the gradient: Additional education does not uniformly equal better health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(11), pages 2007-2012.
    12. Dwyer, Debra Sabatini & Mitchell, Olivia S., 1999. "Health problems as determinants of retirement: Are self-rated measures endogenous?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 173-193, April.
    13. Yang Yang & Kenneth C. Land, 2008. "Age–Period–Cohort Analysis of Repeated Cross-Section Surveys: Fixed or Random Effects?," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 36(3), pages 297-326, February.
    14. David Warner & Mark Hayward & Melissa Hardy, 2010. "The Retirement Life Course in America at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 29(6), pages 893-919, December.
    15. Crimmins, Eileen M. & Saito, Yasuhiko, 2001. "Trends in healthy life expectancy in the United States, 1970-1990: gender, racial, and educational differences," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 52(11), pages 1629-1641, June.
    16. Tyson H. Brown & David F. Warner, 2008. "Divergent Pathways? Racial/Ethnic Differences in Older Women's Labor Force Withdrawal," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 63(3), pages 122-134.
    17. Peter A. Diamond & Peter R. Orszag, 2005. "Saving Social Security," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(2), pages 11-32, Spring.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Arthur Sakamoto & Christopher R. Tamborini & ChangHwan Kim, 2018. "Long-Term Earnings Differentials Between African American and White Men by Educational Level," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 37(1), pages 91-116, February.

    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. Hui Zheng, 2020. "Unobserved population heterogeneity and dynamics of health disparities," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 43(34), pages 1009-1048.
    2. Zheng, Hui & George, Linda K., 2012. "Rising U.S. income inequality and the changing gradient of socioeconomic status on physical functioning and activity limitations, 1984–2007," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(12), pages 2170-2182.
    3. Delaruelle, Katrijn & Buffel, Veerle & Bracke, Piet, 2015. "Educational expansion and the education gradient in health: A hierarchical age-period-cohort analysis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 79-88.
    4. Zhang, Wei & McCubbin, Hamilton & McCubbin, Laurie & Chen, Qi & Foley, Shirley & Strom, Ida & Kehl, Lisa, 2010. "Education and self-rated health: An individual and neighborhood level analysis of Asian Americans, Hawaiians, and Caucasians in Hawaii," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(4), pages 561-569, February.
    5. John Robert Warren, 2016. "Does Growing Childhood Socioeconomic Inequality Mean Future Inequality in Adult Health?," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 663(1), pages 292-330, January.
    6. Allison, R. Andrew & Foster, James E., 2004. "Measuring health inequality using qualitative data," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 505-524, May.
    7. Zajacova, Anna & Hummer, Robert A., 2009. "Gender differences in education effects on all-cause mortality for white and black adults in the United States," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(4), pages 529-537, August.
    8. Sandra L. Decker & Dahlia K. Remler, 2004. "How Much Might Universal Health Insurance Reduce Socioeconomic Disparities in Health? A Comparison of the US and Canada," NBER Working Papers 10715, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Liliya Leopold & Thomas Leopold, 2016. "Education and Health across Lives and Cohorts: A Study of Cumulative Advantage in Germany," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 835, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    10. Liliya Leopold, 2019. "Health Measurement and Health Inequality Over the Life Course: A Comparison of Self-rated Health, SF-12, and Grip Strength," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 56(2), pages 763-784, April.
    11. Aviad Tur-Sinai & Amira Paz & Israel Doron, 2022. "Self-Rated Health and Socioeconomic Status in Old Age: The Role of Gender and the Moderating Effect of Time and Welfare Regime in Europe," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-17, April.
    12. Lorenti, Angelo & Dudel, Christian & Hale, Jo Mhairi & Myrskylä, Mikko, 2020. "Working and disability expectancies at older ages: the role of childhood circumstances and education," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 106194, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    13. Golberstein Ezra & Hirth Richard A. & Lantz Paula M., 2012. "Estimating the Education-Health Relationship: A Cost-Utility Approach," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 11(3), pages 1-27, March.
    14. Gimenez-Nadal, J. Ignacio & Molina, Jose Alberto, 2015. "Health status and the allocation of time: Cross-country evidence from Europe," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 188-203.
    15. Lixin Cai & Guyonne Kalb, 2004. "Health Status and Labour Force Participation: Evidence from the HILDA Data," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2004n04, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    16. Baeten, Steef & Van Ourti, Tom & van Doorslaer, Eddy, 2013. "The socioeconomic health gradient across the life cycle: What role for selective mortality and institutionalization?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 66-74.
    17. Zajacova, Anna & Montez, Jennifer Karas, 2018. "Explaining the increasing disability prevalence among mid-life US adults, 2002 to 2016," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 211(C), pages 1-8.
    18. Johan Rehnberg & Jessica Kelley, 2020. "What Levels the Association Between Income and Mortality in Later Life: Age or Health Decline?," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 75(2), pages 426-435.
    19. Lixin Cai & Guyonne Kalb, 2007. "Health status and labour force status of older working-age Australian men," Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE), Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School, vol. 10(4), pages 227-252.
    20. Rubén Castro, 2011. "About the role of chronic conditions onto the US educational differences on mortality," Working Papers 19, Facultad de Economía y Empresa, Universidad Diego Portales.

    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:oup:geronb:v:69:y:2014:i:6:p:973-978.. 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/psychsocgerontology .

    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.