TY - JOUR

T1 - Data Sources on the Older Population in Europe

T2 - Comparison of the Generations and Gender Survey (GGS) and the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE)

AU - Keenan, Katherine

AU - Foverskov, Else

AU - Grundy, Emily

PY - 2016

Y1 - 2016

N2 - The Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) and the Generations and Gender Survey (GGS) are two widely used European longitudinal surveys with data on socio-demographic and health topics, but their comparability has not been systematically investigated. We compared SHARE and GGS data for 50-80 year olds in seven European countries (Belgium, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands and Poland) to assess data quality and the potential for joint analyses. The results showed that information on age, gender, marriage and fertility patterns and the corresponding distributions were broadly similar in both sources. For some countries, distributions by educational level varied between the two sources even though both reported using the same International Standard Classification of Education, which may reflect variations in the timings of surveys. The differences also observed for estimates of the prevalence of poor health might come from the wording of health questions and their placement in the questionnaire that sometimes differed between the surveys. We investigated what effect these variations might have on analyses of health inequalities by undertaking multivariable analysis of associations between education and marital status and two standard health indicators: self-reported health (SHR) and long-standing illness (LSI).

AB - The Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) and the Generations and Gender Survey (GGS) are two widely used European longitudinal surveys with data on socio-demographic and health topics, but their comparability has not been systematically investigated. We compared SHARE and GGS data for 50-80 year olds in seven European countries (Belgium, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands and Poland) to assess data quality and the potential for joint analyses. The results showed that information on age, gender, marriage and fertility patterns and the corresponding distributions were broadly similar in both sources. For some countries, distributions by educational level varied between the two sources even though both reported using the same International Standard Classification of Education, which may reflect variations in the timings of surveys. The differences also observed for estimates of the prevalence of poor health might come from the wording of health questions and their placement in the questionnaire that sometimes differed between the surveys. We investigated what effect these variations might have on analyses of health inequalities by undertaking multivariable analysis of associations between education and marital status and two standard health indicators: self-reported health (SHR) and long-standing illness (LSI).

KW - Generations and Gender Survey (GGS)

KW - Survey of Health

KW - Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE)

KW - data quality

KW - health

KW - ageing

KW - comparison

KW - Europe

U2 - 10.3917/popu.1603.0547

DO - 10.3917/popu.1603.0547

M3 - Journal article

VL - 71

SP - 511

EP - 537

JO - Population

JF - Population

SN - 0032-4663

IS - 3

ER -