Socioeconomic inequalities in health among elderly people in Taiwan: A life course perspective

Hsiao-Hsiao Tan, Yi-Chan Lee, Ya-Mei Chen and Tung-liang Chiang

PLOS ONE, 2025, vol. 20, issue 7, 1-13

Abstract: Background: Individuals’ health could be well predicted through their lifetime trajectories. Those with greater socioeconomic advantages tend to exhibit better health and a slower rate of health decline as they age, and vice versa. Objective: This study aims to investigate how health trajectory in old age is shaped by the accumulation of socioeconomic status (SES) across three life stages. Method: The dataset used in this study is derived from the Taiwan Longitudinal Study on Aging (TLSA) conducted from 1989 to 2003, with 4,048 respondents aged 60 and older. A stratified analysis, utilizing Generalized Estimating Equations (GEE) models, is employed to investigate the interrelationships between SES across three life stages and the longitudinal patterns of three health outcomes. Result: Of all the participants over the five waves, participants’ health declined with aging, while the proportion of higher SES among remaining individuals tended to increase. A gradient in health improvements is observed, corresponding to the accumulation of SES, even after adjusting for demographic factors and baseline health. Moreover, improvements in a single SES indicator are significantly associated with better health when controlling for the other two indicators (all p

Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0327191

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0327191

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