HI-GEN-SHARE · Health and Gender Health Inequalities: a longitudinal analysis using the Survey of Health Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE)

Health and Gender Health Inequalities: a longitudinal analysis using the Survey of Health Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE)

Health inequalities are a major concern in all European countries and the COVID-19 Pandemic has pointed out how preserving the individuals’ health status is crucial to the overall economy. Recent statistics of the OECD report that one in three deaths in Europe is caused by chronic diseases such as heart attacks, stroke, chronic respiratory problems and diabetes. Despite mortality rates have declined in most OECD country over time, the population ageing and the rising of socio-economic disparities may hamper future mortality reduction. Many of these chronic conditions are rooted in the overall life course and might be explained by early life conditions. Although health inequalities have been addressed by several fields, from natural to social sciences, the mechanisms through which they originate and persist over the life cycle are still unclear. Several studies have been conducted at country level and with a specific targeted population. However, a comprehensive study on Europeans to understand the origins of health inequalities over life in Europe is lacking. My project fills this gap by exploiting novel econometric techniques to investigate health inequalities on a panel of European individuals. This will advance our understanding of how socio-economic determinants and health build up and interact over time. The project has therefore two main research directions. First, it aims to extend the analysis of health inequalities from early to late life exploiting a panel of European countries. I exploit the Survey of Health Ageing and Retirement (SHARE) which provides information of individuals aged 50 and above, along with early childhood conditions and child health status. I take advantage of the retrospective survey conducted in 2009 and 2017 to build the individual health trajectory over the life course. I apply novel econometric techniques to improve the understanding of the origins and evolution of health disparities. The results will shed light on the origins and causes of the heterogenous health trajectories of Europeans. From a policy perspective, the results will contribute to understanding how disparities stem from early ages to late life. As a second step, I focus on gender health inequalities as a key channel of health disparities. Indeed, social determinants have largely been considered as the main cause of health inequalities, whilst the role of gender has instead been considered only as a biological factor with regards to this disparity. I look at how gender as a driver of health inequalities by exploiting the SHARE data and the European administrative data (EUROSTAT) on the provision of health services. I investigate whether the differences in healthcare usage are also due to gender differences in access to care. I combine the dataset prepared in for the first part of the project with the EUROSTAT data and apply econometric models to analyse this innovative perspective of health inequalities. I also make use of an additional data on gender norms (the European Value Study), to understand whether opinions, beliefs and attitudes based on the gender influence the healthcare usage. This ambitious project will address health inequalities with a longitudinal approach on a panel of European individuals and will provide cutting-edge quantitative results, along with policy recommendations to reduce health disparities in Europe. The particular focus on the causes of gender health inequalities will advance the understanding on how to tackle this specific matter, which is at the core of the MSCA action.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз