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Cohort Changes in the Incidence of Care Need in West Germany Between 1986 and 2005

Changement entre générations dans la transition vers la dépendance en Allemagne de l’Ouest entre 1986 et 2005

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Abstract

In Germany, the share of the older population has been continuously growing. Is the increase paralleled by a rising number of frail people, however? In search of an answer, we analyse the development of care need incidence in West Germany between 1986 and 2005 on the basis of longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). The results show a lower transition risk to care need for each successive cohort when all degrees of care need are taken into account. However, no change occurs when only severe care need is measured.

Résumé

En Allemagne, la proportion relative de personnes âgées ne cesse d’augmenter. Cette tendance s’accompagne-t-elle d’une élévation de la proportion de personnes dépendantes? Afin d’explorer cette question, nous analysons le processus de transition vers la dépendance en Allemagne de l’Ouest entre 1986 et 2005, à l’aide des données du Panel Socio-Economique Allemand. Les résultats indiquent une abaissement du risque de transition entre les cohortes les plus anciennes et les cohortes les plus récentes, quand tous les degrés de dépendance sont pris en compte. Toutefois, on n’observe pas de changement pour ce qui est de la dépendance la plus lourde.

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Notes

  1. The categories are classified according to the German school system: 8/9 years: Volksschule or Hauptschule, 10 years: Realschule (East Germany: Polytechnische Oberschule) 12/13 years: Gymnasium (East Germany: Erweiterte Oberschule).

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Acknowledgements

The data used in this publication, the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), was made available by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), Berlin. The study is financed by “FELICIE: Future Elderly Living Conditions In Europe”, a project carried out under the 6th Framework of the European Commission. We are very grateful to Michaela Kreyenfeld for her help with the SOEP data and to Gunnar Andersson and Roland Rau for useful comments and suggestions on previous versions of this article.

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Correspondence to Uta Ziegler.

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Ziegler, U., Doblhammer, G. Cohort Changes in the Incidence of Care Need in West Germany Between 1986 and 2005. Eur J Population 24, 347–362 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10680-007-9144-4

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