The socio-demographic determinants of self-reported disability of the elderly in Poland

Anita Abramowska-Kmon, Warsaw School of Economics

Population ageing has been recently one of the most important demographic phenomena. According to the last population forecast in Poland, the number of people aged 60+ will increase by 64% in the period 2002 – 2030, whereas the share of the elderly will rise from about 17% to 30%. Since the health status deteriorates with age the growth in the number of older people will contribute to an increase in the number of the disabled and the dependent. However, many studies have shown that the health status does not only depend on biological factors (age, sex), but also on social and demographic factors (place of residence, living arrangements, marital status or level of education). For instance, although life expectancy for women is higher than for men, females experience more health problems than males. Furthermore, the health status of single persons is worse than that of the married. Finally, health indicators for people with a higher education level are better than for the less educated. The objective of this study is twofold: (1) to describe the health status of the elderly in Poland by age, sex, place of residence, living arrangements, marital status and the level of education (by assuming that the health status can be considered in terms of the disability category) and (2) to study determinants of the health status by use of the logistic regression.