Cohort Differences in Healthy Life Expectancy by Education Level and Gender in Europe

Aïda Solé-Auró , Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Jordi Guma-Lao , Centre for Demographic Studies
Timothy Riffe , Universidad del País Vasco & Ikerbasque (Basque Foundation for Science)

Population health research has improved substantially in recent decades. Health disparities exist across regions and are indicative of differences in demographic and epidemiological change across regions and cohorts of birth. This work explores existent differences in healthy life expectancy (HLE) above age 50 according to gender, three education levels, and four European country groups (Central, Northern, Eastern, and Southern) using three different birth cohorts representative of different historical periods in Europe (1920–1939 – being born before World War II; 1940–1949 – being born during and immediately after World War II; and 1950–1962 - being born in the second half of the last century). To do this, we apply some experimental new indirect inference techniques, combining estimates, projections, and scenarios from different data sources. Our preliminary findings show a clear educational gradient as well as an advantaged situation for those individuals living in the Central and Northern European countries. We observe that HLE based on self-perceived health shows larger values among the older cohorts, with seems to be contrary to what we initially expected, especially given the cohort mortality improvements. This could be due to previously observed changes in the criteria to self-declare health as good with age, where the older respondents are more likely to perceive their health as good after a progressive process of adaptation to their health status. It could also be due to overly sensitive extrapolations of health prevalence, which cover a rather long-time horizon, especially for the 1950-1962 cohort.

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 Presented in Session 20. Adding Healthy Life Years to Our Lives