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Income mobility among the elderly in Sweden during the 1990s
- Authors:
- ZAIDI Asghar, GUSTAFSSON Björn
- Journal article citation:
- International Journal of Social Welfare, 16(2), January 2007, pp.84-93.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
Using a large panel dataset, this article investigates the degree of, and explanatory factors for, income mobility amongst the elderly in Sweden during the 1990s. It contributes to literature on welfare indicators for the older population as it supplements the welfare picture of the income adequacy with insights into income certainty during old age. The study uses the administrative register data for Sweden, which provides a reliable record of incomes for a large sample of the elderly. Results for Sweden-born and foreign-born elderly persons are analysed separately and compared with corresponding groups of people of working age. The majority of the results indicate that the income of the older population is more stable than that of the working age population, and upward income mobility is not as usual among the elderly as among other groups. The multivariate regression analyses identify several explanatory factors affecting those elderly who experienced income mobility. Most importantly, the death of a spouse increases the probability of downward income mobility, particularly amongst women. These and other findings of this research point to triggers of income poverty in old age that should be taken into account in policies concerned with the level and indexation of retirement income of future pensioners.
A life course approach to understanding poverty among older American adults
- Authors:
- RANK Mark R., WILLIAMS James Herbert
- Journal article citation:
- Families in Society, 91(4), October 2010, pp.337-341.
- Publisher:
- The Alliance for Children and Families
A relatively new strategy for studying the prevalence of poverty in America is to analyse it as a potential life course event. In this study this approach is used in order to examine the likelihood of both income and asset poverty for individuals between the ages of 60 and 90. The estimates reported are based upon data taken from the biennial survey, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). Estimates are made of the cumulative likelihood that Americans between the ages of 60 and 90 will experience at least 1 year of income poverty and also whether they possess a level of assets that would enable them to remain above the official poverty line for 3 months. The results show that nearly half of all elderly Americans will encounter at least 1 year of poverty or near poverty across these ages. In addition, 58% of those between the ages of 60 and 84 will at some point fail to have enough liquid assets to allow them to weather an unanticipated expense or downturn in income. The policy and practice implications of these findings are discussed.
Determining semi-normative poverty lines using social survey debate
- Author:
- DEEMING Christopher
- Journal article citation:
- Social Policy and Administration, 43(3), June 2009, pp.270-289.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
Debates about how to set minimum income standards for health and general well-being are very current in Britain. Family budget standards remain popular but the results can be criticized for being little more than abstractions. They are to an extent 'artificial' and this raises questions about their 'real adequacy'. Another way to operationalize adequacy of income, in a lived sense, is to consider the household income levels at which a specified, desirable, healthy standard of living is in fact achieved, indicated here by diet and nutrition. Data are taken from the United Kingdom's Expenditure and Food Survey; the sample has been restricted to an older population, and three years of data (2002–5) provided a combined sample of 4,300 households. The study findings and semi-normative poverty lines are critically discussed in relation to the national UK policy context as well as the international research literature on poverty measurement.
Well-being of older people in ageing societies
- Author:
- ZAIDI Asghar
- Publisher:
- Ashgate
- Publication year:
- 2008
- Pagination:
- 318p., bibliog.
- Place of publication:
- Aldershot
Part 1 of this book sets the context with an introduction and chapters on conceptualising well-being of older people, methodological choices in measuring well-being and the British pension and social benefit system. Part 2 gives empirical findings on coupling of disadvantages - income deprivation and limiting health in old age, income mobility in old age, covariates of income mobility in old age, and a comparative investigation of income mobility of the elderly in Britain and the Netherlands. Part 3 has a single chapter consisting of a synthesising discussion and conclusions. Much information is given in figures and tables.
The socio-economic determinants of older people's health in Brazil: the importance of marital status and income
- Authors:
- BOS Antonio, BOS Angelo J.
- Journal article citation:
- Ageing and Society, 27(3), May 2007, pp.385-405.
- Publisher:
- Cambridge University Press
Studies in various countries have reported that older people who are married have better health than older widows. This paper reports a replication of these analyses with Brazilian data. The main objective was to explore the relationships between marital status, individual and household income, and the health of men and women using ordered logistic regression with self-assessed health as the dependent variable. The explanatory variables of interest were gender, marital status, and individual and family income. The data are from a survey of 7,920 non-institutionalised older people resident in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul in 1995. The survey used a structured, multi-disciplinary questionnaire, which collected information on demographic attributes, household composition, social relations, occupation, income and health status. The results show that widows were 20 per cent more likely to report better health than married women. The women without individual income had worse health than those who did, even after controlling for family income. For men, there were no significant differences in health by marital status. The main recommendation is that the health status and economic circumstances of married elderly women should be given more attention in both research and policy, certainly in Brazil and probably in other Latin American countries. Programmes of income support to the poorest households should include specific transfers to these elderly women. Brazil's Family Health and Older People's Health public programmes should place more emphasis on the health of elderly home-makers.
Attitudes to inheritance in Britain
- Author:
- JOSEPH ROWNTREE FOUNDATION
- Publisher:
- Joseph Rowntree Foundation
- Publication year:
- 2005
- Pagination:
- 4p.
- Place of publication:
- York
With more families owning their own homes, more people will both bequeath and inherit assets. A key issue that this raises for social policy is whether people maintain their assets to leave as bequests (potentially raising the living standards of their children) or use them in later life to improve their own living standards. Almost half (46 per cent) of adults have inherited something. Most inheritances involve relatively small amounts; but 5 per cent of people have inherited £50,000 or more. Professional white owner-occupiers are most likely to receive an inheritance. The researchers conclude that inheritance plays an important part in many people’s lives but has not generally become entrenched as an expectation or duty. Most older people are willing to use their assets for themselves, rationally using some of their lifetime assets to meet needs in later life.
Housing for care: a response to the post-transitional old-age gap?
- Author:
- MANDIC Srna
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of European Social Policy, 26(2), 2016, pp.155-167.
- Publisher:
- Sage
This article examines the trade-off between owned housing and old-age care in Slovenia where the population has been found outstandingly willing to enter residential care and also consume housing wealth for this purpose. To explain this peculiarity, a case study as a holistic in-depth analysis was conducted, combining multiple sources of quantitative survey data and qualitative interview-based insights and accounting for the institutional context and individual decisions. What was found was a modernised version of the traditional ‘inheritance for care’ exchange, whereby the inheritor partly finances the parent’s residential care. This family-mediated trade-off between old-age care and housing wealth was found to serve as an informal equity-release scheme which in Slovenia helps bridge the post-transitional old-age gap, the syndrome of low pensions, underdeveloped care services and owner-occupied housing un-adapted to seniors. Moreover, it is hypothesised that this structural gap is common to other post-transitional countries. (Publisher abstract)
Gold age pensioners: valuing the socio-economic contribution of older people in the UK
- Author:
- WRVS
- Publisher:
- WRVS
- Publication year:
- 2011
- Pagination:
- 31p.
- Place of publication:
- Cardiff
Over the past century, average life expectancy in the UK has increased by 30 years and this trend will continue. By 2030, there will be three million over 85s in the UK and more than 15 million over 65s. This research, undertaken by SQW on behalf of WRVS, seeks to strengthen the evidence base in relation to an ageing society by examining the contribution of a growing population of older people as well as the costs. Based on that evidence, this research challenges the widely held view that older people represent a net cost to society. Findings showed that older people made a positive net contribution of £40 billion to the UK economy in 2010. Furthermore, as the overall number of people over 65 increases and people remain healthier for longer, opportunities to make a positive contribution through work or volunteering will grow. As a result, by 2030, the positive net contribution of over 65s will rise to an estimated £77 billion.
Ageing, income and living standards: evidence from the British Household Panel Survey
- Authors:
- BERTHOUD Richard, BLEKESAUNE Morten, HANCOCK Ruth
- Journal article citation:
- Ageing and Society, 29(7), October 2009, pp.1105-1122.
- Publisher:
- Cambridge University Press
In Britain, older people have lower average incomes and a higher risk of income poverty than the general population. Older pensioners are more likely to be in poverty than younger ones. Yet certain indicators of their living standards suggest that older people experience less hardship than expected, given their incomes. A possible explanation is that older people convert income into basic living standards at a higher rate than younger people, implying that as people age they need less income to achieve a given standard of living. Much existing evidence has been based on cross-sectional data and therefore may not be a good guide to the consequences of ageing. Longitudinal data was used on people aged at least 50 years from the British Household Panel Survey to investigate the effects of ageing on the relationship between standard of living, as measured by various deprivation indices, and income. It was found that for most indices, ageing increases deprivation when controlling for income and other factors. The exception is a subjective index of ‘financial strain’, which appears to fall as people age. Evidence of cohort effects were also found. At any given age and income, more-recently-born older people in general experience more deprivation than those born longer ago. To some extent these ageing and cohort effects balance out, which suggests that pensions do not need to change with age.
Perceived income adequacy among older adults in 12 countries: findings from the survey of health, ageing, and retirement in Europe
- Authors:
- LITWIN Howard, SAPIR Eliyahu V.
- Journal article citation:
- Gerontologist, 49(3), June 2009, pp.397-406.
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
This study aimed to validate a survey research measure of subjective income, as measured by perceived income adequacy, in an international context. The study population comprised persons aged 50 years and older in 12 countries from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (n = 28,939). Perceived difficulty in making ends meet was regressed on sociodemographic variables, economic indicators, health status measures, and expectations regarding one's financial future. Country differences were also controlled. The findings confirm a multidimensional explanation of perceived income adequacy but also point to the primacy of objective economic indicators in predicting household financial distress. Respondents aged 80 years and older report less financial difficulty. Poor health status and pessimistic financial expectations also predict greater household financial distress but to a lesser degree. Self-rated economic status is a robust indicator of financial capacity in older age and can be used by practitioners to gain meaningful information. However, practitioners should keep in mind that the oldest-old may underestimate financial difficulties.