The effect of gender, living arrangements and education on health transitions above age 50 in Poland

Wojciech Latkowski, Warsaw School of Economics

Poland will experience advanced population ageing driven by improvements in longevity, low fertility and approaching old age by baby boom cohorts. Given the higher morbidity prevalence observed at older ages, the demand for the elderly care is expected to increase considerably. The study focuses on the dynamics of health of people aged 50 and over in Poland. We aim to verify how the risks of the health status change are shaped over age and what the impact of gender, education and living arrangemtents is. The empirical analysis makes use of a non-parametric multi-state model for transitions in health. The age-specific health transition probabilities accounting for the individual level variables are estimated based on the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) panel data for the years 2008–2011. As a result, we assess age profiles for health transitions with respect to gender, education and living arrangements. The first results confirm the well-known regularities in research on health: the risk of being unhealthy is increasing with age, while the probability of recovery is decreasing. Women have a higher risk of the onset of disability than men, whereas recovery to health is similar for men and women. Potential effects of education and living arrangements on health are yet to be examined.