Table 1.
Descriptive statistics of sample aged 50 +
| Explanatory variables | Spain |
England |
USA |
||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total | Males | Females | Total | Males | Females | Total | Males | Females | |
| Number of individuals | 2,170 | 997 | 1,173 | 9,121 | 4,096 | 5,025 | 17,986 | 7,474 | 10,512 |
| Mean age | 66.1 | 65.0 | 67.1 | 65.8 | 65.5 | 66.1 | 68.4 | 68.1 | 68.7 |
| At least one ADL difficulty (%) | 12.8 | 9.4 | 15.8 | 19.2 | 17.9 | 20.2 | 18.5 | 15.3 | 20.9 |
| At least one IADL difficulty (%) | 20.5 | 14.4 | 25.9 | 20.0 | 15.7 | 23.5 | 33.2 | 25.5 | 39.1 |
| Marital status (%): | |||||||||
| Married | 72.7 | 80.7 | 66.0 | 64.8 | 74.0 | 57.2 | 62.8 | 77.0 | 52.1 |
| Widowed | l6.3 | 5.0 | 25.9 | 17.5 | 9.4 | 24.1 | 20.7 | 8.9 | 29.6 |
| Separated/divorced | 2.3 | 2.9 | 1.8 | 11.9 | 10.0 | 13.4 | 13.2 | 10.8 | 15.1 |
| Never married | 8.7 | 11.4 | 6.3 | 5.9 | 6.6 | 5.3 | 3.3 | 3.4 | 3.2 |
| Household composition (%): | |||||||||
| Living alone | 17.3 | 13.5 | 20.6 | 26.3 | 19.0 | 32.3 | 23.0 | 14.7 | 29.3 |
| Live with a spouse/co-habitant | 70.7 | 78.8 | 63.8 | 67.4 | 77.1 | 59.5 | 65.1 | 79.6 | 54.0 |
| Child in hh | 45.2 | 42.7 | 47.1 | 21.1 | 22.5 | 19.9 | 14.0 | 13.2 | 14.6 |
| Child outside hh | 764 | 73.9 | 78.5 | 77.7 | 75.5 | 79.5 | 91.2 | 91.4 | 91.0 |
| Mean number of children | 2.3 | 2.1 | 2.4 | 2.2 | 2.2 | 2.2 | 3.2 | 3.2 | 3.2 |
Notes: USA: United States of America. hh: household. ADL: activity of daily living. IADL: instrumental activity of daily living.
Source: Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe for Spain (SHARE, 2006), English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA, 2006-07), and the Health and Retirement Study for the USA (HRS, 2006). Weights are applied.