Have Health Inequalities Increased during the COVID-19 Pandemic? Evidence from Recent Years for Older European Union Citizens

Reducing inequality is one of the current challenges that most societies are facing. Our aim was to analyze the evolution of inequalities in self-assessed health among older Europeans in a time period spanning the 2008 economic crisis and the COVID-19 health crisis. We used data from Waves 2, 4 and...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of environmental research and public health 2022-06, Vol.19 (13), p.7812
Main Authors: González Rodríguez, Irene, Pascual Sáez, Marta, Cantarero Prieto, David
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aging
Coronaviruses
COVID-19
Economic crisis
Environmental policy
Geriatrics
Health disparities
Health economics
Income inequality
Life expectancy
Pandemics
Population
Public policy
Retirement
Trends
Variables
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Reducing inequality is one of the current challenges that most societies are facing. Our aim was to analyze the evolution of inequalities in self-assessed health among older Europeans in a time period spanning the 2008 economic crisis and the COVID-19 health crisis. We used data from Waves 2, 4 and 8 of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe. We used inequality indices that accept ordinal variables. Our empirical results suggest that average inequality declines over time. Gender significantly influences the results. Some of the countries with the highest level of inequality are Denmark and Sweden, and some with the lowest are Estonia and the Netherlands. Our results may be of interest for the development of public policies to reduce inequalities. Special attention should be paid to vulnerable groups, such as the elderly.
ISSN:1660-4601
1661-7827
1660-4601
DOI:10.3390/ijerph19137812