A selection from Stockholm University publication database

• What Levels the Association Between Income and Mortality in Later Life

  2019. Johan Rehnberg. The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences

  Article

  OBJECTIVES: Researchers frequently use the "age-as-leveler" hypothesis to explain decreasing inequality and a weakened relationship between socioeconomic position and health in old age. This study examined whether health status can explain the age pattern in the association between income and mortality as predicted by the age-as-leveler hypothesis.

  METHOD: This study used longitudinal (1991-2002) data from the SWEOLD and LNU surveys. The analytical sample consisted of 2,619 people aged 54-92 in 2003. Mortality (2003-2014) and income (1991-2000) was collected from Swedish national registers. Poisson regression was used to estimate associations between mortality, income, age, and health status. Average marginal effects were used to visualize interaction effects between income and age.

  RESULTS: The association between income and mortality weakened in those aged 84 and older. However, health status explained a large part of the effect that age had on the association between income and mortality. Analyses done after stratifying the sample by health status showed that the association between income and mortality was strong in people who reported good health and weak or nonexistent in those who reported poor health.

  DISCUSSION: Age leveled the income-mortality association; however, health status, not age, explained most of the leveling.

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• Inequalities in life and death

  2019. Johan Rehnberg (et al.).

  Thesis (Doc)

  Income serves as an indicator of success relative to others, and provides individuals with resources that strengthen their capability to face challenges and benefit from opportunities. Out of all social determinants of health, income is one of the strongest predictors of health outcomes. The positive association between income and health in the working-age population is well established; those with higher income tend to have better health. Less is known about the association between income and health among older persons. Several studies have observed that in old age, health inequalities decrease and the relationship between income and health weakens. However, at what point in the ageing process the association starts to weaken, and to what extent, is debated.

  The ageing process highlights the need for several theoretical considerations in studies on income and health. Societies are stratified by age, as manifested through transitions in and out of education, work, and retirement. Moreover, the individual experience of the ageing process involves biological processes of decline. Many health problems, and particularly death, are uncommon events during most of adulthood. In old age, however, health decline becomes a normative experience, and in Sweden, more than 90 percent of all deaths occur among people aged 65 or older. The characteristics and magnitude of age-related changes in the association between income and mortality constitute one of the prime concerns in this thesis. I have used two contending perspectives to understand the empirical results: the cumulative (dis)advantage theory and the age-as-leveler hypothesis.

  In this thesis, I have investigated the association between income and mortality across ages, with a focus on later life. More specifically, I studied the shape and magnitude of the income-mortality association across the life course. Furthermore, I tested two potential mechanisms that may shape this association in old age: health decline and mortality selection. Overall, this thesis shows to what extent and in what ways the association between income and mortality is maintained in old age

  This thesis includes four empirical studies. Study I, II, and IV are based on data from Swedish national registers (n = 801,017 – 5,011,414). Study III used survey data (LNU and SWEOLD) linked with data from administrative registries (n = 2619). The results from Study I showed that the income-mortality association was curvilinear with diminishing returns of income in both mid-life and late-life. Study II showed that relative mortality inequalities in income decreased with age and absolute mortality inequalities in income increased with age up to age 85-90, after which the mortality inequalities decreased. The results from Study III showed that health decline partly explained the weakened income-mortality association among the oldest old. Finally, Study IV showed that selective mortality had a substantial impact on poverty rates in old age; poverty rates were consistently and substantially lower for those who survived than those who died. Furthermore, selective mortality had the largest influence on the surviving population when mortality rates were at their highest.

   

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• Divergence and Convergence

  2019. Johan Rehnberg, Stefan Fors, Johan Fritzell. Gerontology 65 (3), 313-322

  Article

  BACKGROUND: Do inequalities in health by income increase or decrease with age? The empirical evidence is not conclusive and competing theories arrive at different conclusions.

  OBJECTIVE: This study examined inequality in mortality by income over the adult life course with longitudinal data on people aged 30-99 between the years 1990 and 2009. Each person was followed for 19 years.

  METHODS: We used Swedish total population data with 5,011,414 individual observations. We calculated the probability of having died for ages between 31 and 99. This approach to calculating death risk incorporates selective mortality during the follow-up period into the measure. Age and year standardized income positions were calculated for all individuals. Inequality was assessed by comparing the top 10% income group and the bottom 10% income group. Relative inequality was measured by risk ratios (RR) and absolute inequality by percentage point differences.

  RESULTS: The results showed that the highest relative income inequality in mortality was at age 56 for men (RR: 4.7) and at age 40 for women (RR: 4.1) with differing patterns across the younger age categories between the sexes. The highest absolute income inequality in mortality was found at age 78 for men (19% difference) and at age 89 for women (14% difference) with similar patterns for both sexes. Both measures of inequality decreased after the peak, with small or no inequalities above age 95. Income inequality in mortality remained in advanced age, with larger absolute inequalities in older ages and larger relative inequalities in younger ages.

  CONCLUSION: The results for absolute and relative measures of inequality differed substantially; this highlights the importance of discussing and making an active choice of inequality measure. To explain and understand the patterns of inequality in mortality over the adult life course, we conclude that the "age-as-leveler" and "cumulative disadvantage" theories are best applied to an absolute measure of inequality.

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• Income trajectories prior to alcohol-attributable death in Finland and Sweden

  2019. Lasse Tarkiainen (et al.). Addiction 114 (5), 807-814

  Article

  BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Mortality from alcohol-attributable causes is patterned by income. We study analysed the income trajectories 17-19 years prior to death in order to determine: 1) whether income levels and trajectories differ between those who die of alcohol-attributable causes, survivors with similar sociodemographic characteristics, all survivors and those dying of other causes; 2) whether the income trajectories of these groups differ by education; and 3) whether there are differences in income trajectories between Finland and Sweden - two countries with differing levels of alcohol-attributable mortality but similar welfare-provision systems.

  DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study using individual-level longitudinal register data including information on income, cause of death and socioeconomic position.

  SETTING: Finland and Sweden Participants: The subjects comprised an 11-percent sample of the Finnish population in 2006-07 and the total population of Sweden aged 45-64 in 2007-08.

  MEASUREMENTS: Median household income trajectories by educational group were calculated by cause of death and population alive during the respective years. Additionally, propensity score matching was used to match the surviving population to those dying from alcohol-attributable causes with regard to sociodemographic characteristics.

  FINDINGS: The median income 17-19 years prior to death from alcohol-attributable causes was 92% (Finland) and 91% (Sweden) of survivor income: one year prior to death the respective figures were 47% and 57%. The trajectories differed substantially. Those dying of alcohol-attributable causes had lower and decreasing incomes for substantially longer periods than survivors and people dying from other causes. These differences were more modest among the highly educated. The baseline sociodemographic characteristics of those dying of alcohol causes did not explain the different trajectories.

  CONCLUSIONS: In Finland and Sweden, income appears to decline substantially before alcohol-attributable death. Highly educated individuals may be able to buffer the negative effects of extensive alcohol use on their income level. Income trajectories are similar in Finland and Sweden despite marked differences in the level of alcohol-attributable mortality.

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• The shape of the association between income and mortality in old age

  2016. Johan Rehnberg, Johan Fritzell. SSM - Population Health 2, 750-756

  Article

  This study used data on the total population to examine the longitudinal association between midlife income and mortality and late-life income and mortality in an aging Swedish cohort. We specifically examined the shape of the associations between income and mortality with focus on where in the income distribution that higher incomes began to provide diminishing returns. The study is based on a total Swedish population cohort between the ages of 50 and 60 years in 1990 (n=801,017) followed in registers for up to 19 years. We measured equivalent disposable household income in 1990 and 2005 and mortality between 2006 and 2009. Cox proportional hazard models with penalized splines (P-spline) enabled us to examine for non-linearity in the relationship between income and mortality. The results showed a clear non-linear association. The shape of the association between midlife (ages 50-60) income and mortality was curvilinear; returns diminished as income increased. The shape of the association between late-life (ages 65-75) income and mortality was also curvilinear; returns diminished as income increased. The association between late-life income and mortality remained after controlling for midlife income. In summary, the results indicated that a non-linear association between income and mortality is maintained into old age, in which higher incomes give diminishing returns.

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• Shape of the association between income and mortality

  2016. Laust H. Mortensen (et al.). BMJ Open 6 (12)

  Article

  Objectives: Prior work has examined the shape of the income-mortality association, but work has not compared gradients between countries. In this study, we focus on changes over time in the shape of income-mortality gradients for 4 Nordic countries during a period of rising income inequality. Context and time differentials in shape imply that the relationship between income and mortality is not fixed. Setting: Population-based cohort study of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. Participants: We collected data on individuals aged 25 or more in 1995 (n=12.98 million individuals, 0.84 million deaths) and 2003 (n=13.08 million individuals, 0.90 million deaths). We then examined the household size equivalised disposable income at the baseline year in relation to the rate of mortality in the following 5 years. Results: A steep income gradient in mortality in men and women across all age groups except the oldest old in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. From the 1990s to 2000s mortality dropped, but generally more so in the upper part of the income distribution than in the lower part. As a consequence, the shape of the income gradient in mortality changed. The shift in the shape of the association was similar in all 4 countries. Conclusions: A non-linear gradient exists between income and mortality in most cases and because of a more rapid mortality decline among those with high income the income gradient has become steeper over time.

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• Absolute or relative? A comparative analysis of the relationship between poverty and mortality

  2015. Johan Fritzell (et al.). International Journal of Public Health 60 (1), 101-110

  Article

  We aimed to examine the cross-national and cross-temporal association between poverty and mortality, in particular differentiating the impact of absolute and relative poverty. We employed pooled cross-sectional time series analysis. Our measure of relative poverty was based upon the standard 60 % of median income. The measure of absolute, or fixed, poverty was based upon the US poverty threshold. Our analyses were conducted on data for 30 countries between 1978 and 2010, a total of 149 data points. We separately studied infant, child, and adult mortality. Our findings highlight the importance of relative poverty for mortality. Especially for infant and child mortality, we found that our estimates of fixed poverty is close to zero either in the crude models, or when adjusting for gross domestic product. Conversely, the relative poverty estimates increased when adjusting for confounders. Our results seemed robust to a number of sensitivity tests. If we agree that risk of death is important, the public policy implication of our findings is that relative poverty, which has close associations to overall inequality, should be a major concern also among rich countries.

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