Living in the 21st Century:
Older People in England
The 2006 English Longitudinal Study of Ageing
16 July 2008
Funded by:
• National Institute for Aging
• UK government departments (coordinated by ONS)
Currently:
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Department of Health
Department for Work and Pensions
Department for Transport
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Communities and Local Government
ONS
Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs
A joint venture between UCL, NatCen & IFS
Investigators from Universities of Manchester and
Cambridge
Thanks also to:
our Advisory Group
our consultants and advisors
our collaborators
Key Research Areas
• Health trajectories, disability and healthy life expectancy
• Two-way relationship between economic position and
health
• Other determinants of economic position in older age
• Timing of retirement + post retirement labour market
activity
• Nature of social networks, support and participation
• Household and family structure
• Predictors of wellbeing
HSE + Nurse 1998-1999-2001
Born before 01/03/1952
Est 18660
HSE + Nurse 2001-02-03-04
Born 1952-6
ELSA Wave One 2002
Main Interview (11392 core)
Wave Two 2004
Wave Two 2004
Main (8780 core)
Nurse (7666)
HSE + Nurse 2006
Born 1933-1958
Wave Three 2006
Main (7535 core +1276
refresher core)
Life history 2007
(7859)
Wave Four 2008
Wave Four 2008
Main
(aim c 10100)
Nurse
PSA 17: Tackle poverty and promote greater
independence & wellbeing in later life
5 key areas
• Making contribution in society, esp. through
employment
• Material wellbeing, esp, tackle pensioner poverty
• Level of health
• Satisfaction with home & neighbourhood –
interpret to include quality of life
• Ability to maintain independent living
Employment
Trends in employment among those pre State
Pension Age
Expectations of employment versus actual
Predictors of employment
Work disability
Material wellbeing
• Who is poor and does poverty persist?
• How has wealth changed over time?
Level of health
• Body weight and waist circumference – important
factors for future health
• Physical functioning & mortality – not randomly
distributed
• Healthy life expectancy
Quality of life
• Who has higher quality of life
• Who does better in change in quality of life over
time
• Notion of resilience to adversity – is this a rare
phenomenon or not
Independent living
• Participation in society if have difficulties in
physical functioning
• Social detachment – does it persist, what predicts
its existence
In the public domain
• Wave 1 2002-3; report Marmot et al 2003
• Wave 2 2004-5; report Banks et al 2006
• Wave 3 2006-7; report Banks et al 2008
At academic archive for access:
Datasets from Wave 0 (HSE years)
Wave 1, Wave 2, Wave 3 . Life history due soon
Index file (tracing everyone through from HSE)
websites
• www.ifs.org.uk/elsa
• http://www.esds.ac.uk/longitudinal/access/elsa/l5050.asp
• www.natcen.ac.uk/elsa