Racial and Socioeconomic Disparities in Healthy Retirement
Author Information
Author(s): Leah Abrams, Yuan Zhang
Primary Institution: Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, United States; Columbia University, New York, New York, United States
Hypothesis
Who in American society retains health and functioning to enjoy retirement years?
Conclusion
In 2016, adults over age 51 spent a smaller portion of their life in healthy retirement compared to 1998.
Supporting Evidence
- Mortality progress has stagnated since around 2010.
- Americans with low education have not benefited from delayed disability.
- There are substantial racial disparities in morbidity and mortality.
- In 2016, Black and white men and women spent between 17-20% of remaining life years after 51 in healthy retirement.
- Men spent about 42% of life years healthy and working, compared to about 30% for women.
- Black men were not working with functional limitations, while white men spent a greater portion of time working with functional limitations.
Takeaway
This study looks at how long people can enjoy retirement while being healthy, and it found that many are spending less time healthy in retirement now than before.
Methodology
Data on physical functioning and work status from the Health and Retirement study in two periods (1998 and 2016) were used to run Markov models.
Participant Demographics
Adults over age 51, with a focus on racial and socioeconomic differences.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
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