SHARE is a unique panel database of micro data on health, socio-economic status and social and family networks covering most of the European Union and Israel. To date, SHARE has collected three panel ...waves (2004, 2006, 2010) of current living circumstances and retrospective life histories (2008, SHARELIFE); 6 additional waves are planned until 2024. The more than 150 000 interviews give a broad picture of life after the age of 50 years, measuring physical and mental health, economic and non-economic activities, income and wealth, transfers of time and money within and outside the family as well as life satisfaction and well-being. The data are available to the scientific community free of charge at www.share-project.org after registration. SHARE is harmonized with the US Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) and has become a role model for several ageing surveys worldwide. SHARE's scientific power is based on its panel design that grasps the dynamic character of the ageing process, its multidisciplinary approach that delivers the full picture of individual and societal ageing, and its cross-nationally ex-ante harmonized design that permits international comparisons of health, economic and social outcomes in Europe and the USA.
Objectives
SHARE, a pan‐European panel study in 27 European countries and Israel, has collected dried blood spot (DBS) samples from approximately 27 000 respondents in 13 countries. We aim to obtain ...factors to convert analyte values between DBS and venous blood samples (VBS) taking account of adverse fieldwork conditions such as small spot size, high temperature and humidity, short drying time and long shipment times.
Methods
We obtained VBS and DBS from a set of 20 donors in a laboratory setting, and treated the DBS in a systematic and controlled fashion simulating SHARE fieldwork conditions. We used the 3420 outcomes to estimate from DBS analyte values the values that we would have obtained had it been feasible to collect and analyze the donors' venous blood samples.
Results
The influence of field conditions and sample quality on DBS analyte values is significant and differs among assays. Varying spot size is the main challenge and affects all markers except HbA1c. Smaller spots lead to overly high measured levels. A missing desiccant is detrimental for all markers except CRP and tHb. The temperature to which the samples are exposed plays a significant role for HDL and CysC, while too brief a drying time affects CRP and CysC. Lab‐based adjustment formulae only accounting for the differences between re‐liquefied DBS and venous blood do not address these fieldwork conditions.
Conclusions
By simulating adverse fieldwork conditions in the lab, we were able to validate DBS collected under such conditions and established conversion formulae with high prediction accuracy.
Objectives
The quality of blood values analyzed from survey‐collected dried blood spot (DBS) samples is affected by fieldwork conditions, particularly spot size. We offer an image‐based algorithm ...that accurately measures the area of field‐collected DBS and we investigate the impact of spot size on the analyzed blood marker values.
Methods
SHARE, a pan‐European study, collected 24 000 DBS samples in 12 countries in its sixth wave. Our new algorithm uses photographs of the DBS samples to calculate the number of pixels of the blood‐covered area to measure the spot sizes accurately. We ran regression models to examine the association of spot size and seven DBS analytes. We then compared the application of our new spot‐size measures to common spot‐size estimation.
Results
Using automated spot‐size measurement, we found that spot size has a significant effect on all markers. Smaller spots are associated with lower measured levels, except for HbA1c, for which we observe a negative effect. Our precisely measured spot sizes explain substantially more variance of DBS analytes compared to commonly used spot‐size estimation.
Conclusion
The new algorithm accurately measures the size of field‐collected DBS in an automated way. This methodology can be applied to surveys even with very large numbers of observations. The measured spot sizes improve the accuracy of conversion formulae that translate blood marker values derived from DBS into venous blood values. The significance of the spot‐size effects on biomarkers in DBS should also incentivize the improvement of fieldwork training and monitoring.
The authors study the relation between workers’ age and their productivity in work teams, based on a new and unique data set that combines data on errors occurring in the production process of a ...large car manufacturer with detailed information on the personal characteristics of workers related to the errors. The authors correct for non-random sample selection and the potential endogeneity of the age-composition in work teams. The results suggest that productivity in this plant which is typical for large-scale manufacturing does not decline at least up to age 60.
This study explores the interrelated roles of health and welfare state policies in the decision to take up disability insurance (DI) benefits due to work disability (WD), defined as the (partial) ...inability to engage in gainful employment as a result of physical or mental illness. We exploit the large international variation of health, self-reported WD, and the uptake of DI benefits in the United States and Europe using a harmonized data set with life history information assembled from SHARE, ELSA, and HRS. We find that the mismatch between WD and DI benefit receipt varies greatly across countries. Objective health explains a substantial share of the within-country variation in DI, but this is not the case for the variation across countries. Rather, most of the variation between countries and the mismatches are explained by differences in DI policies.
Background: Single motherhood is associated with poorer health, but whether this association varies between countries is not known. We examine associations between single motherhood and poor ...laterlife health in the USA, England and 13 European countries. Methods: Data came from 25 125 women aged 50+ who participated in the US Health and Retirement Study, the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing and Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe. We tested whether single motherhood at ages 16-49 was associated with increased risk of limitations with activities of daily living (ADL), instrumental ADL and fair/poor selfrated health in later life. Results: 33% of American mothers had experienced single motherhood before age 50, versus 22% in England, 38% in Scandinavia, 22% in Western Europe and 10% in Southern Europe. Single mothers had higher risk of poorer health and disability in later life than married mothers, but associations varied between countries. For example, risk ratios for ADL limitations were 1.51 (95% CI 1.29 to 1.98) in England, 1.50 (1.10 to 2.05) in Scandinavia and 1.27 (1.17 to 1.40) in the USA, versus 1.09 (0.80 to 1.47) in Western Europe, 1.13 (0.80 to 1.60) in Southern Europe and 0.93 (0.66 to 1.31) in Eastern Europe. Women who were single mothers before age 20, for 8+ years, or resulting from divorce or nonmarital childbearing, were at particular risk. Conclusions: Single motherhood during early-adulthood or mid-adulthood is associated with poorer health in later life. Risks were greatest in England, the USA and Scandinavia. Selection and causation mechanisms might both explain between-country variation.
The extent of demographic changes in Europe is much more drastic than in the United States. This paper studies the effects of population aging on the interactions between economic growth and living ...standards in Europe with labor market and pension reform, behavioral adaptations, and international capital flows. Our analysis is based on an overlapping generations model with behavioral reactions to reform which is extended to the multi-country situation typical for Europe. While the negative effects of population aging on growth in Europe can in principle be compensated by reforms and economic adaptation mechanisms, they may be partially offset by behavioral reactions.
Saving regret and procrastination Börsch-Supan, Axel; Bucher-Koenen, Tabea; Hurd, Michael D. ...
Journal of economic psychology,
01/2023, Letnik:
94
Journal Article
Recenzirano
In countries, where a substantial proportion of retirement income rests on savings, there is much concern that a sizeable fraction of the population reaches retirement with insufficient financial ...resources. We define saving regret as the wish in hindsight to have saved more earlier in life. We measured saving regret and possible determinants in a survey of U.S. households in which respondents were aged 60–79. We find high levels of saving regret, affirmed by some 58%. Saving regret exhibits significant and plausible correlations with personal characteristics and wealth: Married, older, healthier and wealthier respondents are less likely to report saving regret, suggesting the measure’s validity. We find only weak evidence for correlations between saving regret and measures of procrastination: persons with traits associated with procrastination express saving regret about as often as those without those traits.
Projected demographic changes in industrialized and developing countries vary in extent and timing but will reduce the share of the population in working age everywhere. Conventional wisdom suggests ...that this will increase capital intensity with falling rates of return to capital and increasing wages. This decreases welfare for middle aged asset rich households. This paper takes the perspective of the three demographically oldest European nations – France, Germany and Italy – to address three important adjustment channels to dampen these detrimental effects of aging in these countries: investing abroad, endogenous human capital formation, and increasing the retirement age. Our quantitative finding is that endogenous human capital formation in combination with an increase in the retirement age has strong implications for economic aggregates and welfare, in particular in the open economy. These adjustments reduce the maximum welfare losses of demographic change for households alive in 2010 by about 2.2 percentage points in terms of consumption equivalent variation.
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