How does gender moderate the association between marital status and nursing home entry in Europe? A panel analysis of data from SHARE (2004-2020)

Sacha Van Duyse , UCLouvain
Ester L. Rizzi, Université Catholique de Louvain
Damiano Uccheddu, University of Louvain (UCLouvain)

To the best of our knowledge, no study has focused on how marital status could play a role in nursing home admissions across 28 European countries, with a specific focus on differences between genders. This article will therefore focus on the following research question: how does gender influence the association between marital status and nursing home entry in Europe? Using data from eight waves of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), we were able to follow 137,785 individuals aged 50 and over from 2004 to 2020 (404,706 observations). Preliminary results from random-effects linear probability models suggest that individuals living with a partner, whether through marriage or registered partnership, have a lower risk of entering a nursing home compared to those who are widowed, divorced, never married, or married but living apart. Interestingly, this trend appears to be consistent between men and women. In further developing our research, we aim to investigate in greater depth how the association between marital status and nursing home entry varies between different European countries. Keywords: nursing home entry, marital status, gender, Europe

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 Presented in Session 95. Families, Ageing and Health