Patterns of Healthy Aging and Household Size Dynamics in Western Europe

Abstract

The diversity of family structures and the quality of social relationships are closely tied to one another. Individual characteristics such as parenting, grandparenting, partnership, cohabitation, living apart together, living solo and other contextual factors (for instance intergenerational help and care) shape partnership histories related to health dynamics; these histories vary greatly depending on gender and country. Over the last 20 years, researchers have considered the Northern Europe as a region of weak family ties and the Southern Europe as a region of strong family ties. This study interprets the household size as an age-related factor and focuses on two empirical questions: (1) Are there gender differences related to health patterns, and how do they change over time? (2) What kind of country-specific differences in the household size dynamics can be observed among West European men and women in the second part of life?

The study uses descriptive elements of sequence analysis and regression analysis based on the panel data from seven waves of the SHARE project (Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe) collected between 2004 and 2017. The study shows that there are gender differences in the life-course transition to a single-person household.  This type of household become more common with time and with individual’s increasing age. The statistical patterns can be helpful in identifying those life stages that are crucial to stabilization of functional health within the context of demographic change.

Ethics statement.  The SHARE project has been running since 2002. It was originally established at the Mannheim Research Institute for the Economics of Aging (MEA) of the University of Mannheim. Since 2011, it is being operated under the umbrella of the Max Planck Society at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy and is centrally coordinated by the Munich Center for the Economics of Aging. The SHARE study was subject to several ethics reviews: The Ethics Committee of the University of Mannheim, Ethics Council of the Max Planck Society and by national ethics committees. This study was conducted in full accordance with the World Medical Association (WMA) (Declaration of Helsinki, last revised at the 64th WMA Meeting held in Fortaleza, Brazil in October 2013). Written consents from all participants involved in this study were obtained.