Deaths during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic: insights from regional patterns in Germany and Poland.

Background: Given the nature of the spread of SARS-CoV-2, strong regional patterns in the fatal consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic related to local characteristics such as population and health care infrastructures were to be expected. In this paper we conduct a detailed examination of the spatial correlation of deaths in the first year of the pandemic in two neighbouring countries - Germany and Poland, which, among high income countries, seem particularly different in terms of the death toll associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis aims to yield evidence that spatial patterns of mortality can provide important clues as to the reasons behind significant differences in the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in these two countries.

Home Alone: Widows' Well-Being and Time.

Unlabelled: Using data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE, 2004-17) and time diaries from Poland (2013), the U.S. (2006-16), the U.

Healthier over time? Period effects in health among older Europeans in a step-wise approach to identification.

We examine changes in the level of physical health using longitudinal data on people aged 50+ from nine European countries covering the years from 2004 to 2017. For this purpose we develop a novel approach to identify age, period and cohort effects, which, in contrast to methods relying on mechanical restrictions, uses a step-wise estimation combining information on physical health with data on cognitive abilities. The approach relies on two important assumptions.

Implications of Social and Material Deprivation for Changes in Health of Older People.

We use the panel structure of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) data for 14 countries to examine the implications of material and social deprivation for health deterioration in old age and mortality. To minimize the potential endogeneity bias, we examine the relationship between deprivation and changes in health rather than levels of health. We include a substantial set of fixed "initial conditions," and extend the controls with health measures, as observed at the initial period.

Poverty and transitions in health in later life.

Using a sample of Europeans aged 50+ from 12 countries in the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), we analyse the role of poor material conditions as a determinant of changes in health over a four- to five-year period. We find that poverty defined with respect to relative income has no effect on changes in health. However, broader measures of poor material conditions, such as subjective poverty or low wealth, significantly increase the probability of transition to poor health among the healthy and reduce the chance of recovery from poor health over the time interval analysed.

Dynamics of health and labor market risks.

While there is little doubt that the probability of poor health increases with age, and that less healthy people face a more difficult situation on the labor market, the precise relationship between facing the risks of health deterioration and labor market instability is not well understood. Using 12 years of data from the German Socio-Economic Panel we study the nature of the relationship between poor health and non-employment on a sample of German men aged 30-59. We propose a joint model of health and labor market risks which identifies the mechanism through which poor health contributes to the probability of being jobless and vice versa.