Advantages and disadvantages across the life course and health status in old age among women in Chile

Objectives Based on a life course perspective, we assessed the association between three types of social advantages and disadvantages accumulated across different life stages, with the number of self-reported chronic conditions among women aged 60 + in Chile, a Latin-American country with almost no reports on this matter. Methods We used a population-representative longitudinal survey (Chile’s Social Protection Survey) with information about childhood conditions, economic mobility across life, educational attainment, late adulthood labor-force trajectories, and later-life health, of 2627 women aged 60+. We then used sequence and Poisson regression analyses to assess the effect of life course (dis)advantages over the number of chronic conditions in old age. Results Growing up in a poor household and experiencing downward economic mobility (especially among those with a non-poor childhood) increases the predicted number of chronic conditions in old age. By contrast, having a continuous and formal labor-force trajectory in late adulthood and higher educational attainment is associated with fewer chronic conditions later in life. Conclusions Policy measures that seek to foster health prevention and health care among older women should consider how multiple exposures to social advantages/disadvantages during earlier stages of the life course could affect health in late life.