Well-being of older persons in Central and Eastern European countries

Authors

  • Radoslaw Antczak Warsaw School of Economics
  • Asghar Zaidi

https://doi.org/10.17583/rasp.2018.3109

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Abstract

 Central and Eastern Europe is a unique region in terms of its social, economic and

demographic trends, particularly because of legacy of the communist system and

transformation to a market system. The transition coincided with a rapid

demographic change in which younger generation was able to reorganise themselves

relatively easily whereas older people found this change much more difficult. This

paper builds a picture of well-being of older population in eight Eastern European

countries: Albania, Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, Montenegro, Serbia, Turkey and

Ukraine and compares it to eight other European Union (EU) member States of the

same region. We used the Global AgeWatch Index – an analytical framework of

Zaidi (2013 ) offering comparative analysis of older people’s well-being across the

world. It is extended by gender-specific analysis for two domains: health status and

capability. The results show that the combined Index value of eight Eastern and

South-Eastern non-EU countries is considerably below the average observed for

eight EU member States, however, in some individual indicators, some of the non-

EU states performed better than the EU countries. The evidence summarised can be

used to assess the position of the region and points to areas where policy changes are

necessary.

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Published

2018-01-30

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How to Cite

Antczak, R., & Zaidi, A. (2018). Well-being of older persons in Central and Eastern European countries. Research on Ageing and Social Policy, 6(1), 26–52. https://doi.org/10.17583/rasp.2018.3109

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