Differences in Self-Reported Health between Low- and High-Income Groups in Pre-Retirement Age and Retirement Age. A Cohort Study Based on the European Social Survey

Using data from the European Social Survey 1 (2002) and 9 (2018) we show the development of self-rated health in 17 countries for pre-retirement and post-retirement cohorts. We find a considerable increase of older people reporting good or very good health between 2002 and 2018; this increase is similar in all groups examined. Absolute differences between income groups remained vastly stable, whereas relative health inequalities declined. While this suggests that the advantage for high-income persons of being in good or very good health at an older age declined, in 2018 the high-income tercile of those between 65 and 80 still reported better health than the low-income tercile of those between 49 and 64. Overall, self-treated health seems to have improved in Europe but there are signs of a considerable gap between low-income groups and high-income groups