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Inequality and Frailty in Older Adults: a Comparison Among Four European Countries with Different Ageing Context

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Abstract

This paper investigates the association between work trajectories and frailty in later life in four ageing contexts (AAI index): Czech Republic, Denmark, Italy and Poland.

Data of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) is used to create the frailty index and linear regression models are applied to assess the association between frailty condition and work trajectories of 6187 women and men, aged between 50 and 74 years old.

The findings underline that women experience worse frailty than men in all countries. Having precarious work trajectories is detrimental to individuals’ health everywhere, but it becomes even worse for Danish men and Polish men and women. The ageing context (AAI index) is not associated with health inequalities in older people.

We suggest that further research should explore more in detail the mechanisms linking job insecurity to psycho-social risks as possible determinants of frailty, taking into account differences at the national level.

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Availability of Data and Material

This paper uses data from SHARE Waves 1, 2, 3 (https://doi.org/10.6103/SHARE.w1.710, https://doi.org/10.6103/SHARE.w2.710, https://doi.org/10.6103/SHARE.w3.710). The SHARE data collection has been funded by the European Commission through FP5 (QLK6-CT-2001–00,360), FP6 (SHARE-I3: RII-CT-2006–062,193, COMPARE: CIT5-CT-2005–028,857, SHARELIFE: CIT4-CT-2006–028,812), FP7 (SHARE-PREP: GA N°211,909, SHARE-LEAP: GA N°227,822, SHARE M4: GA N°261,982, DASISH: GA N°283,646) and Horizon 2020 (SHARE-DEV3: GA N°676,536, SHARE-COHESION: GA N°870,628, SERISS: GA N°654,221, SSHOC: GA N°823,782) and by DG Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion. Additional funding from the German Ministry of Education and Research, the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science, the U.S. National Institute on Aging (U01_AG09740-13S2, P01_AG005842, P01_AG08291, P30_AG12815, R21_AG025169, Y1-AG-4553–01, IAG_BSR06-11, OGHA_04-064, HHSN271201300071C) and from various national funding sources is gratefully acknowledged (see www.share-project.org).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Oxford, UK

    Sara Zella

  2. Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Milan Via Conservatorio, 720122, Milano, Italy

    Simone Sarti

  3. Centre of Competence on Ageing, Department of Business Economics, Health and Social Care, University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland, Stabile Piazzetta, Via Violino 11, CH-6928, Manno, Switzerland

    Daniele Zaccaria

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  1. Sara Zella
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All the authors jointly conceived and designed this study. They also wrote the paper, contributing equally to drafting it. All authors read and approved the manuscript.

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Appendix

Appendix

Table 3 Variables used to create the frailty index
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Table 4 Variance Inflaction Factors (VIF)
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Table 5 Description of the sample by country
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Table 6 Coefficients and standard errors (OLS regression model) between work trajectories and the linear frailty index (adjusted for age, age-squared, education, retirement, self-reported health during childhood, illness during childhood, and parents’ behaviours)a
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Fig. 2
figure 2

Associations (linear regression coefficients and credibility intervals) between work trajectories and frailty index, as metric variable (adjusted for age, age-squared, education, retirement, self-reported health during childhood, illness during childhood, and parents’ behaviours). The categories of reference are (11) Men in stable-long careers in non manual job, for each country

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Zella, S., Sarti, S. & Zaccaria, D. Inequality and Frailty in Older Adults: a Comparison Among Four European Countries with Different Ageing Context. Ageing Int 48, 630–655 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12126-022-09493-7

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