Abstract
The aim of this chapter is to explore the determinants of the quality of life of people aged 60 and over in 26 European countries from a double perspective: individual and spatial. We draw on the latest data available from the Survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) (7th wave). To achieve our purpose, a synthetic indicator of quality of life is first obtained, as an alternative to the CASP12 scale that provides said survey. Several econometric models are then estimated to analyse the most decisive factors in explaining the quality of life in older European adults. In 17 of the 26 countries, ceteris paribus, older citizens have a quality of life that is clearly worse than that of the nine countries that make up the Nordic and continental groups. The results of the econometric models bear out the deep-rooted differences between countries vis-à-vis the quality of life of our elderly people
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Notes
- 1.
It should be noted that the results obtained for this group of countries might be affected by the incompleteness of the sample from Portugal.
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Acknowledgements
In memoriam of Dr Bernardo Pena Trapero, our dear Professor and good friend. He was a pioneer scientist in the research of social welfare and his legacy will always remain. The authors thank financial support from Consejería de Educación de la Junta de Castilla y León (VA112G19).This paper uses data from SHARE Wave 7 (DOI:10.6103/SHARE.w7.700), see Börsch-Supan et al. (2013) and Börsch-Supan, A. (2020) for methodological details. The Share data collection has been funded by the European Commission through FP5 (QLK6-CT-2001-00360), FP6 (SHARE-I3: RII-CT-2006-062193, COMPARE: CIT5-CT-2005-028857, SHARELIFE: CIT4-CT-2006-028812), FP7 (SHARE-PREP: GA No 211909, SHARE-LEAP: GA No 227822, SHARE M4: GA No 261982) and Horizon 2020 (SHARE-DEV3: GA No 676536, SERISS: GA No 654221) 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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Somarriba Arechavala, N., Zarzosa Espina, P., Gómez-Costilla, P. (2021). Quality of Later Life in Europe. In: Rojo-Pérez, F., Fernández-Mayoralas, G. (eds) Handbook of Active Ageing and Quality of Life. International Handbooks of Quality-of-Life. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58031-5_18
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