In sickness and in health? Comorbidity in older couples

Publication type

ISER Working Paper Series

Series Number

2013-30

Series

ISER Working Paper Series

Authors

Publication date

December 10, 2013

Abstract:

We investigate the nature and origin of comorbidity, defined as the tendency of members of marital couples to display correlated patterns of ill-health in later life. In the absence of long-term prospective data on couples, we use long-range recall data from the pan-European SHARELife survey and estimate a latent variable model of the health states of marital part- ners in childhood, early adulthood and late adulthood. We find strong persistence in health states and a strong comorbidity correlation, attributable almost equally to homogamy in relation to early health and common factors operating within marriage.

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