Back Active ageing explains up to 30% of health differences among the elderly

Active ageing explains up to 30% of health differences among the elderly

The study, conducted by professors of the Department of Political and Social Sciences Bruno Arpino and Aïda Solé-Auró, within the framework of the CREW project, highlights that active ageing is associated with higher levels of education.

08.03.2018

 

Paid work, volunteering, looking after grandchildren and other social activities, such as doing sport, are good for the health of the elderly. In fact, when the over-65s are more active, they perceive themselves as being, and objectively are, healthier.

In addition, active ageing is associated with higher levels of education: the level of participation in activities among the elderly with different training is responsible for up to 30% of the differences observed in terms of health directly related to level of studies.

These are the results of a study carried out by professors of the Department of Political and Social Sciences at UPF Bruno Arpino, co-director of the Research and Expertise Centre for Survey Methodology (CEXS), together with Aïda Solé-Auró, member of the Sociodemography research group (DemoSoc).

The research, which is part of the European project CREW (Care, Retirement & Wellbeing of Older People Across Different Welfare Regimes), was published last year as a scientific article in the Journal of Aging and Health. It analyses the inequalities in health among older people with different levels of education using three different measures: subjective perception of their general state of health, depression, and finally, physical limitations.

According to Arpino and Solé-Auró, “the fundamental hypothesis we wanted to test was whether these inequalities (or some of them) can be explained by the different degree of active ageing of the elderly, that is, by the individual level of participation in activities such as paid work, volunteering, social activities and caring for grandchildren. We have detected that for some health indicators, up to 30% of inequalities can be explained by the different degrees of active ageing of the elderly, and that older people with higher education tend to be more active”.

They add that “the contribution is especially significant if we refer to participation in the labour market and in voluntary and social activities, although it is more marginal in terms of taking care of grandchildren. That is not to say that taking care of grandchildren is not relevant for the purposes of active ageing, but it simply does not help explain the socioeconomic inequalities in terms of health”.

Data usage over time to avoid misinterpretations

Although it is difficult to establish the existence of a cause-effect link between the habit of performing various activities and the guarantee of health in old age, this study, according to the authors, was approached precisely to try to rule out the possibility of inverting causality (that is to say, that the healthier elderly tend to be more active precisely because of their good state of health).

The researchers explain that for this reason they use longitudinal data: “At the beginning of the research we measured the health of the participants and their degree of involvement in various activities, and we saw how the initial habit of carrying out several types of activities was associated with a better state of health two years later”.

The CREW project, to which the study belongs, focuses on the relationships between caring, retirement and the quality of life of the elderly in different welfare regimes. Formed by a consortium of six European institutions, coordinated by UPF, it has a duration of three years (2017-2019) and is part of the Joint Programming Initiative (JPI) programme “More Years, Better Lives”, funded by the European Commission.

Reference work: Bruno Arpino and Aïda Solé-Auró: “Education inequalities in health among older European men and women: the role of active aging” (August 2017). Journal of Aging and Health

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