Aging & Social Change: Thirteenth Interdisciplinary Conference

Abstract

Functional decline is a major contributor to disability and dependence in older adults, which has significant social and economic implications for a country. Understanding functional decline trends and determinants can provide important insights for social policy. In this scope, longitudinal population surveys are a crucial source of information and have provided important clues on the effects of early and life course factors. Due to data availability, southern and eastern Europe countries are underrepresented in international comparative longitudinal studies. This study contributes to this empirical gap. Using data from three waves of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, we draw on nationally representative samples of men and women aged 50 and older in Portugal and Estonia. An ageing vector model was used to estimate the trajectories of functional limitations in each sample, namely the estimations of age-specific prevalence risk and age-specific prevalence risk change in 6 years period. With these longitudinal growth models, the study of the role of early and adult life socioeconomic determinants was assessed, and the trends of younger and older cohorts were compared. Significant international variation was found in the region in the effect of some socioeconomic determinants. In the two countries, younger cohorts were found to be less healthy at comparable ages than the older cohorts contradicting some more optimistic expectations of longevity gains. Implications of these trends to the national trajectories for sustainable development are discussed.