A comparative analysis of the health status in the FELICIE Countries

Gabriele Doblhammer, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research
Uta Ziegler, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research
Pekka Martikainen, University of Helsinki
Elena Nihtilä, University of Helsinki

We use the European Community Household Panel (ECHP) to study marital status specif disability in the nine Felicie countries. The ECHP contains the question “Are you hampered in daily activities by any physical or mental health problem, illness or disability” with the answer categories severely, to some extent, and no. Due to small sample sizes at older ages, we do not get reliable age-specific prevalences of disability for the unmarried population. We restrict our analysis to the married population and calculate their age-specific profiles of disability.Using the proportion of married people living in institutions from national statistics, we then adjust the age-profile in order to reflect the prevalences in the total married population. In addition we use national health surveys to estimate odds ratios of disability for the widowed, single and divorced as compared to the married and apply these odds ratios to the age-specific prevalences of the married.