Table 1.
Descriptive statistics
| First wave | Last wave | All waves | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean | SD | Mean | SD | Mean | SD | |
| Health outcomes: | ||||||
| Subjective health | 2.50 | 0.87 | 2.36 | 0.87 | 2.41 | 0.86 |
| Physical health | 6.23 | 0.89 | 5.84 | 1.04 | 6.13 | 0.94 |
| High blood pressure/hypertension (%) | 34.26 | 49.09 | 38.27 | |||
| Diabetes/high blood sugar (%) | 14.42 | 28.37 | 19.20 | |||
| Cancer or malignant tumour (%) | 1.76 | 5.14 | 2.55 | |||
| Chronic lung disease (%) | 5.89 | 7.56 | 5.67 | |||
| Heart problems (%) | 2.27 | 6.11 | 3.12 | |||
| Stroke (%) | 1.48 | 3.26 | 1.76 | |||
| Arthritis/rheumatism (%) | 16.37 | 15.74 | 15.40 | |||
| Psychological health | 5.44 | 2.33 | 5.32 | 2.55 | 5.33 | 2.43 |
| Formal education: | ||||||
| Years of education | 6.51 | 4.78 | 6.50 | 4.71 | 6.46 | 4.75 |
| Retirement timing: | ||||||
| Retirement status (%) | – | – | 51.03 | 0.50 | 14.86 | 0.36 |
| Current age | 57.90 | 6.45 | 68.27 | 5.69 | 61.54 | 7.66 |
| Covariates: | ||||||
| Income (in US $1,000, not logged) | 11.28 | 83.32 | 7.24 | 50.26 | 9.53 | 64.98 |
| Employed spouse (%) | 46.29 | 14.31 | 30.94 | |||
| No spouse (%) | 22.89 | 31.58 | 23.01 | |||
| Spouse not employed (%) | 30.82 | 54.11 | 46.05 | |||
| Not in the labour force (%) | – | – | 27.60 | 0.45 | 19.42 | 0.40 |
| Functional limitations index | 2.91 | 1.23 | 3.14 | 1.31 | 2.97 | 1.25 |
| Psychological health | 5.43 | 2.33 | 5.31 | 2.55 | 5.33 | 2.43 |
| Never smoked (%) | 54.13 | 0.49 | 61.87 | 0.49 | 57.39 | 0.49 |
| Ever smoked (%) | 26.82 | 0.44 | 27.51 | 0.45 | 26.21 | 0.44 |
| Current smoker (%) | 19.05 | 0.39 | 12.47 | 0.33 | 16.40 | 0.37 |
| Abstainer (%) | 61.10 | 0.49 | 77.34 | 0.42 | 69.33 | 0.46 |
| Light drinking behaviour (%) | 31.13 | 0.46 | 18.03 | 0.38 | 24.07 | 0.43 |
| Moderate drinking behaviour (%) | 4.44 | 0.21 | 3.49 | 0.18 | 4.07 | 0.20 |
| Heavy drinking behaviour (%) | 3.32 | 0.18 | 1.14 | 0.11 | 2.54 | 0.16 |
| Women (%) | 53.57 | 55.86 | 54.15 | |||
| Indigenous ethnicity (%) | 4.82 | 5.13 | 4.85 | |||
| Professional worker (%) | 16.50 | 16.29 | 16.44 | |||
| Clerical/sale/service worker (%) | 34.10 | 33.9 | 34.88 | |||
| Blue-collar worker (%) | 49.40 | 49.81 | 48.68 | |||
| N | 2,430 | 1,834 | 6,276 | |||
Notes: Raw values before transformations are reported for all variables, unless explicitly noted. Percentages are reported for all dichotomous variables. SD: standard deviation.