Longitudinal data
Investigator
David Blane, Imperial College London
Team
Seeromanie Harding, MRC Social and Public Health Sciences, Glasgow
Melanie Bartley, University College London
Richard Wiggins, Institute of Education, London
Paul Boyle, University of St Andrews
Partners
Office for National Statistics
Help the Aged
Department for Work and Pensions
Turin Longitudinal Study
Finnish Longitudinal Study
Contact
David Blane
Email: d.blane@imperial.ac.uk
Background
The timing of labour market exit is becoming more varied, with many leaving the labour market before the State Pension Age, along side proposals to raise the State Pension Age (SPA).
These issues are bound up with health, both as a cause of early labour market exit and as a possible consequence of a raised SPA.
In addition health and the timing of labour market exit are tied to a third issue, that of informal caring for a dependent spouse, parent or child.
Retirement, informal caring and health make a complex package of inter-related choices and transitions which face most people in early old age, but about which little is known.
What are the health precursors and consequences of combining part-time paid employment pre-SPA with informal caring? Is continuing in paid employment post-SPA dependent on preceding good health; and what are its health consequences? How stable are these relationships; and are they changing along with the changing industrial and occupational structure?
The answers to these questions are relevant to the UK population when facing such choices and transitions; and relevant to policy makers when debating reform.
Aims and objectives
The project had the following research questions:
Has the relationship between health and labour force participation at ages over 50 years changed during the period 1971-2001? Does the extent of change vary with social position?
Do the social (1971-2001) and health (1991-2001) life trajectories of informal carers aged 50 years and over differ from those of non-carers? Do these groups differ in mortality and cancer registration during 2001-2004?
Are new combinations of health and social characteristics emerging during the years around the State Pension Age? What are the health consequences of such combinations?
Is the relationship between health and labour force participation at ages over 50 years stable internationally; or does it vary with time and welfare state regime?
Design
In the main, our analyses were based on data held by the Office for National Statistics Longitudinal Study (ONS-LS), which links the Decennial Census returns of 1% of the population of England and Wales, some half-million people. The linked censuses were: 1971, 1981, 1991 and 2001. These also were linked to mortality records and cancer registration.
Support for our ONS-LS analyses came from the Scottish Longitudinal Study, which uniquely in UK links census returns to hospital admissions data, allowing comparison of the census questions on health with the more objective measure of admission to hospital.
Our international comparisons involved Italy and Finland, where both Turin and Finland linked record longitudinal studies that bring together census returns, health registers and data on prescribed medications. While England and Wales, Scotland, Italy and Finland share census-based longitudinal data sets, they differ in their welfare state regimes which allowed us to examine the effect of the wider policy context. These international comparisons concentrated on health and labour force participation, because neither the Italian nor the Finnish Censuses collected information on informal caring.
The project ran for two years. Year one concentrated on Research Question 1. Year two aimed to answer Research Questions 2-4. Our Italian and Finnish collaborators started work on the health and labour market analyses; and we used the second half of Year 2 to answer Research Question 4.
Policy implications
The project examined paid employment and informal caring, and their various combinations, during the years around the State Pension Age (SPA); for example, part-time employment pre-SPA combined with caring for a disabled relative, or continuing paid employment post-SPA, either full time or part-time.
Health was examined as a precursor of these choices, as a component of such combinations and as one of their consequences.
The study’s findings were relevant to pensions and labour market policy and to people’s decisions about how to use their early old age. More specifically, life course analysis of the social patterning of work and caring around SPA will have significance for two aspects of Opportunity Age, the government’s strategy on ageing:
fairness in work
support and care
Three non-academic organisations were involved in the development of the project’s research questions. Both the Department for Work and Pensions and Help the Aged contributed an emphasis on the various combinations of health, employment and caring; and a concern to relate these questions to current policy interests.
The third organisation, Office for National Statistics, contributed also an interest in making best use of a new data opportunity; namely, using the separate Longitudinal Studies of Scotland, Northern Ireland and England and Wales to make within-UK comparisons.
The project researcher was a civil servant on part-time secondment from the Demography Unit of the Department for Work and Pensions, for whom she will write briefing notes and make seminar presentations based on the results of work in progress. The project principal investigator, if invited, will make presentations of work in progress to Help the Aged and the Department of Work and Pensions. These more flexible disseminations will complement peer-reviewed conference presentations and journal articles.
The involvement of Department for Work and Pensions, Help the Aged and Office for National Statistics continued into the project’s research phase. All three organisations were represented on the project team, so they could influence the direction of the project, its conduct and the way in which its results are disseminated.
The New Dynamics of Ageing Programme helped this process by introducing the project to other potentially interested non-academic partners, such as the Department of Health, within the policy sphere, and Age Concern in the voluntary sector.
Findings
Transitions, choices and health in early old age: analyses of longitudinal data (PDF, 2.8MB)