Well-being in Europe: decompositions by country and gender for the population aged 50+

Autor(en): Claudia Reiter, Sonja Spitzer
Abstrakt: The well-being of older Europeans is of increasing importance given the substantialageing of the population. This paper comprehensively analyses well-being forthe population aged 50+ in 26 European countries, using the newly proposedindicator “Years of Good Life” (YoGL), which measures the remaining yearsof life that an individual can expect to live in a “good” state. The indicatorenables the decomposition of well-being into various dimensions, thereby revealingimportant heterogeneities between regions and genders. Results show that numbersof YoGL at age 50 vary considerably between European countries. They are highestin Northern and Western European countries and lowest in Central and EasternEuropean countries, where many “good” years are lost due to low life satisfaction.Interestingly, the high life expectancy levels in Southern Europe do not translate intohigher numbers of YoGL, mainly due to the low levels of physical and cognitivehealth in this region. While women and men can expect to have similar numbersof YoGL, women are likely to spend a smaller proportion of their longer remaininglifetime in a good state. These results demonstrate the importance of using wellbeingindicators that consider population heterogeneity when measuring humanwell-being, especially for older populations.
Organisation(en): Institut für Demografie
Externe Organisation(en): Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital
Journal: Vienna Yearbook of Population Research
Band: 19
Seiten: 1-33
Anzahl der Seiten: 33
ISSN: 1728-4414
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1553/populationyearbook2021.res4.1
Publikationsdatum: 2021
Peer-reviewed: Ja
ÖFOS 2012: 504006 Demographie
Schlagwörter
ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete: Demography
Sustainable Development Goals: SDG 3 – Gesundheit und Wohlergehen
Link zum Portal: https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/240dac7c-c0ed-4c93-a433-e9e3c391c6c1