SOCIAL EXCLUSION OF THE ELDERLY A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF EU MEMBER STATES doc

European Network of Economic Policy Research Institutes SOCIAL EXCLUSION OF THE ELDERLY A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF EU MEMBER STATES GERDA JEHOEL-GIJSBERS AND COK VROOMAN ENEPRI RESEARCH REPORT NO 57 AIM WP8.1 SEPTEMBER 2008 ENEPRI Research Reports publish the original research results of projects undertaken in the context of an ENEPRI project This paper was prepared as part of the Adequacy of Old-Age Income Maintenance in the EU (AIM) project – which has received financing from the European Commission under the 6th Research Framework Programme (contract no SP21-CT-2005-513748) The views expressed are attributable only to the authors and not to any institution with which they are associated ISBN 978-92-9079-814-9 Available for free downloading from the ENEPRI website (http://www.enepri.org) or the CEPS website (www.ceps.eu) © Copyright 2008, Gerda Jehoel-Gijsbers and Cok Vrooman Social Exclusion of the Elderly A Comparative Study of EU Member States ENEPRI Research Report No 57/September 2008 Gerda Jehoel-Gijsbers and Cok Vrooman* Abstract Combating social exclusion is one of the key objectives of pension systems This report focuses on social exclusion among the elderly (defined as the 55+ age group) in the EU’s member states Social exclusion has been conceptualised as a state of individuals in relation to four dimensions Two of these dimensions – material deprivation and social rights – are of a structural nature The other two – social participation and normative integration – pertain to social settings and subcultural factors Theoretically and empirically, the dimensions refer to one latent underlying social exclusion variable The original method for measuring social exclusion was devised and tested for the Netherlands, making use of a dedicated dataset In this study, the measuring instrument has been extended to EU member states, performing secondary analyses of various surveys These datasets not contain information about normative integration, but for each of the other three dimensions it has turned out to be possible to construct valid indices at the EU level Two indices that are more general have been calculated as well: one is a combined index of material deprivation plus social rights and the other is a macro aggregate covering all three dimensions The outcomes suggest that the elderly in the Nordic countries and the Netherlands are the least excluded, in terms of both the three separate dimensions of social exclusion and the more general indices The Continental and Anglo-Saxon countries follow close behind Social exclusion among the elderly is generally higher in the Mediterranean countries The highest social exclusion scores are to be found in the EU’s new member states in Eastern Europe, especially in the Baltic States and Poland In all EU member states exclusion in terms of social participation increases as people grow older Material deprivation shows the reverse pattern: in almost all countries, this form of social exclusion decreases with age With regard to access to social rights – operationalised here in terms of adequate housing and access to medical/dental care – the picture is less straightforward In nearly all Mediterranean and Eastern European countries, the elderly are more excluded than are the non-elderly in this respect In the Nordic countries, Germany and the UK, the opposite occurs: access to social rights improves with rising age In all countries, poor health is an important factor increasing the risk of social exclusion across all dimensions Household income has a strong effect on material deprivation and access to social rights in most countries Age and gender cannot be considered serious risk factors for any of the dimensions of social exclusion after the impact of other variables has been controlled for * The Netherlands Institute for Social Research⏐SCP, The Hague, the Netherlands (email: g.jehoel@scp.nl; c.vrooman@scp.nl) Multilevel analyses show that only a small part of the country variation in social exclusion (as measured by the combined index) can be attributed to differences in the composition of the population in connection with health, education level, age and gender A larger part is related to country differences in household incomes A further (albeit rather small) part has to with specific traits at the country level Elderly persons are less excluded if countries attain a higher level of national wealth, spend more on social protection, show less income inequality and generate higher life expectancy Diverging institutional arrangements – as defined by a classification of countries by their social security and pension regimes – also explain some of the variation in social exclusion After controlling for the impact of income inequality, however, this effect largely disappears This result suggests that such regime types mainly influence social exclusion indirectly, through their effects on income inequality The latter is the country trait with the highest unique contribution to social exclusion of the elderly in the EU Contents Introduction Conceptualisation of social exclusion 2.1 Risk factors: An indirect definition of social exclusion 2.2 Social exclusion and poverty 2.3 A conceptual model Hypotheses and typologies 11 3.1 Hypotheses at the micro level 11 3.2 Typology of long-term care models 12 3.3 Typologies of welfare and pension regimes 12 3.4 Hypotheses at the macro level 14 Operationalisation and index construction 15 4.1 Data 15 4.2 Operationalisation 16 4.3 Construction of indices 18 Empirical results 20 5.1 Country differences 20 5.1.1 Material deprivation of the elderly among countries 21 5.1.2 Access to social rights of the elderly among countries 22 5.1.3 Social participation of the elderly among countries 27 5.1.4 Country differences among the elderly on the general social exclusion indices28 5.1.5 Differences in social exclusion among regions 31 5.2 Age group differences within countries 33 5.2.1 Material deprivation by age 33 5.2.2 Access to social rights by age 34 5.2.3 Social participation by age 35 5.3 Risk factors at the micro level 36 5.3.1 Correlational analysis of risk factors and social exclusion 37 5.3.2 Country-specific logistic regression models 37 5.4 Multilevel models 40 5.4.1 Why multilevel analysis? 40 5.4.2 Variables involved in the multilevel analyses 41 5.4.3 Impact of individual and household characteristics 41 5.4.4 Impact of regime typologies 42 5.4.5 The impact of other country traits 46 Conclusions 48 References 52 Annex A Variables used in the construction of indices 56 Annex B CatPCA and Overals results for national and EU populations 70 Annex C Dimensions of social exclusion by age group 74 Annex D Variation coefficients for social exclusion indices by country 78 Annex E Correlation between exclusion indices and risk factors 79 Annex F Logistic regression models for material deprivation and social rights 82 Annex G Additional country variables used in multilevel analyses 84 Social Exclusion of the Elderly A Comparative Study of EU Member States ENEPRI Research Report No 57/September 2008 Gerda Jehoel-Gijsbers and Cok Vrooman Introduction Combating social exclusion1 is one of the key objectives of pension systems Pensions have to “ensure that elderly people are not placed at risk of social exclusion; that they can enjoy a decent standard of living, that they share in the economic and social well-being of their country, and can accordingly participate in public, social and cultural life” (CEPS, 2004, p 58) The formulation suggests that social exclusion and poverty are related phenomena, but not coincide, and that both are sensitive to policy interventions, particularly in pension schemes A connection between pension policy and social exclusion is explicitly made in the ‘streamlining’ of the EU’s so-called ‘open method of coordination’ on social protection and social inclusion This stipulates that the social inclusion policy and monitoring process should be integrated with the parallel developments on pensions, health and long-term care (European Commission, 2006a, p 11) To date, however, there is limited understanding of the position of the elderly with regard to social exclusion Generally, elderly persons are considered a vulnerable group, mainly because they risk a reduction in participation in various domains of life through the loss of paid work, a decrease in income and an increase in health problems The extent to which this actually occurs and whether it translates into forms of social exclusion is largely an open question This applies all the more so to the empirical prevalence of country differences in relation to this phenomenon This current project focuses on social exclusion of the elderly in the EU member states Four research questions are at stake: 1) To what degree the elderly (aged 55 and older) differ in social exclusion among countries? 2) To what degree the elderly cohorts (aged 55-64, 65-74 and 75 and older) differ in social exclusion from younger cohorts (aged