The Dynamics of Health Across Socioeconomic Groups

This paper explores the dynamic relationship between socioeconomic status and health over time, particularly focusing on the persistent health disparities across different socioeconomic groups in Denmark. Employing data from Statistics Denmark, we track individuals aged 60 to 70 from 1997 to 2017, analyzing not just mean health measures but the entire health distribution. Our findings reveal that health deterioration with age is predominantly observed in lower socioeconomic groups and is characterized by high persistence in poor health conditions. Conversely, higher socioeconomic groups show persistence in better health. This underscores the necessity of considering various distributional characteristics when examining health outcomes and highlights the vulnerability of lower socioeconomic groups to long-term health issues.

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