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Ageing

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Social care – a step forwards or a step backwards?

Comment

Yesterday, the Conservative Party proposed changes to the rules governing who is eligible for government funding for social care, and backed away from a lifetime cap on care costs. In this observation, we discuss those changes and lay out their potential effects. Taking the population of people in their 70s in England we estimate that, on becoming in need of care in their own home, 12-17% would be eligible for state support under current rules but would not be eligible under the new rules proposed by the Conservatives. Others would find they needed to use more of their own wealth to fund the costs of care in their home before the state stepped in.

19 May 2017

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Inevitable trade-offs ahead: long-run public spending pressures

Report

This briefing note is produced as part of IFS Election 2017 analysis, with funding from the Nuffield Foundation as part of its work to ensure public debate in the run-up to the general election is informed by independent and rigorous evidence.

12 May 2017

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English Longitudinal Study of Aging (ELSA). In: Nancy A Pachana (ed.). Encyclopedia of Geropsychology. Springer, Singapore.

Book Chapter
Abstract: Definition The English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) [1] is a multidisciplinary panel study that collects a comprehensive array of measures on a representative sample of men and woman aged 50 and over who are living in England. Repeated measures covering health, economics, psychology, lifestyle and social connections are collected from the same individuals over time, allowing researchers to study the dynamics of the ageing process. The ELSA sample and study design ELSA is sampled from the Health Survey for England (HSE), a large annual cross-sectional survey on the health of the population of England [2]. Sample members recruited at wave 1 (2002/2003) were individuals who had previously taken part in one of three years of the HSE (1998, 1999 and 2001), and were aged 50 or over at the time of the wave 1 interview. Subsequent ELSA data collection waves have taken place biennially, in 2004/05 (Wave 2), 2006/07 (Wave 3), 2008/09 (Wave 4), 2010/11 (Wave 5), 2012/13 (Wave 6) and 2014/15 (Wave 7). The eighth and ninth waves of data collection are planned for 2016/17 and 2018/2019, respectively. New study participants are recruited during some waves in order to compensate for the ageing sample population and to refresh the younger age groups. This serves to maintain representation of all ages 50 and over in ELSA. Refreshment sampling to date has recruited members aged 50-52 at wave 3 (HSE 2001-04); aged 50-74 at wave 4 (HSE 2006), aged 50-55 at wave 6 (HSE 2009 -11) and aged 50-51 at Wave 7 (HSE 2011-12), with plans to continue to recruit new sample members aged 50-51 at future waves. The “core members” of the ELSA sample are individuals aged 50 and over, living in private residences, who were recruited through HSE at either the first Wave of ELSA or at any of the subsequent refreshment samples. The data also includes interviews with “young partners”, who are individuals under the age of 50 whose partners are core members and “new partners” in the correct age range who entered relationships with core members after those members were recruited to ELSA. Mode of interview Data are collected from respondents in their own home, every two years and by means of a computer assisted personal interview (CAPI) that is delivered by a trained interviewer. The CAPI includes questions on the respondents’ demographics, household membership, work and retirement activities, economic circumstances, health and behaviour. A self-completion questionnaire includes questions on wellbeing, social participation, quality of life and social networks, along with questions considered to be sensitive. The main interview takes approximately 85 minutes to complete for an individual interview and around two hours when two people within the same household are interviewed concurrently. At waves 2, 4 and 6, core members who completed a main interview were offered a visit from a qualified nurse, where a blood sample was taken and a series of performance and biomedical tests were conducted. The nurse visits took place soon after the main interviews and were of similar duration to the main interviews.

1 May 2017

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Positive and Negative Experiences of Social Support and Risk of Dementia in Later Life: An Investigation Using the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing

Journal article

BACKGROUND: Having a network of close relationships may reduce the risk of developing dementia. However, social exchange theory suggests that social interaction entails both rewards and costs. The effects of quality of close social relationships in later life on the risk of developing dementia are not well understood.

25 April 2017

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Social capital, deprivation and self-rated health: does reporting heterogeneity play a role? Results from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing.

Journal article

Self-rated health (SRH) is commonly assessed in large surveys, though responses can be influenced by different individuals' perceptions of and beliefs about health. Therefore, instead of providing evidence of 'true' health disparities across groups, findings may actually reflect reporting heterogeneity. Using data from participants aged 50 years and older from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) Wave 3 (2006/07; participation rate = 73%), associations between three dimensions of social capital (local area & trust, social support and social networks), deprivation and SRH were examined using the vignette methodology in 2341 individuals who completed both the self-report and at least one of the 18 vignettes. Analysis employed a hierarchical probit model (HOPIT). Individuals expressing low local area & trust social capital (beta = -0.276, p < 0.001) and those with poor social networks (beta = -0.280, p < 0.001) were more likely to report poor SRH in HOPIT models accounting for reporting heterogeneity, but unadjusted ordered probit analyses still correctly show a negative relationship between low local area & trust social capital (beta = -0.243, p < 0.001) and those with poor social networks (beta = -0.210, p < 0.01), though they somewhat tend to underestimate its strength. Neither social support nor deprivation appeared to have any effect on SRH regardless of reporting heterogeneity. Anchoring vignettes offer a relatively uncomplicated and cost-effective way of identifying and correcting for reporting heterogeneity to improve comparative validity of self-report measures of health. This analysis underlines the need for caution when using unadjusted self-reported measures to study the effects of social capital on health.

12 April 2017

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Discount rate heterogeneity among older households: a puzzle?

Journal article

We put forward a method for estimating discount rates using wealth and income data. We build consumption from these data using the budget constraint. Consumption transitions yield discount rates by household groups. Applying this technique to a sample of older households, we find a similar distribution to those previously estimated using field data, though with a much lower mean than those found using experiments. Surprisingly, among this older population, patience is negatively correlated with education and numeracy. This goes against the positive correlation found for younger populations in experiments and some field studies. We discuss potential explanations for this result.

1 April 2017

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Can sleep disturbance influence changes in mental health status? Longitudinal research evidence from ageing studies in England and Japan.

Journal article

BACKGROUND: Little is known about the role of sleep disturbance in relation to changes in depressive states. We used data obtained from the participants aged 65 and over in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA, waves four and five, N = 3108) and the Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study (JAGES, 2010 and 2013 sweeps, N = 7527) to examine whether sleep disturbance is longitudinally associated with older adults' patterns of depressive states.

15 March 2017

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Investigating the poverty-obesity paradox in Europe.

Journal article

This paper investigates the effect of income- and wealth-based poverty on the probability of being obese for the elderly in Europe by analysing data drawn from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement (SHARE) and the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA). We use early-life economic conditions and regional circumstances as instruments for poverty later in life to account for endogeneity issues. After controlling for a large set of covariates at the individual, household, regional and country level, the results show that poverty significantly increases the probability of being obese and the Body Mass Index (BMI), for men and women. The results show that, accounting for endogeneity with a bivariate probit model, poor individuals are from 10 to 20% points more likely to be obese than non-poor individuals. The effect on BMI ranges from 0.295 points (2.39 kg) to 0.395 points (2.75 kg). These results are robust to a series of checks and suggest that anti-poverty interventions might have positive side effects in terms of reducing food-related health inequalities.

9 March 2017