Perceived Income Adequacy Over Time Between Countries

It is of great interest to get to know the financial capacity of older individuals. The best judges of their own personal welfare are the individuals themselves (Stanovnik, 1992), so that perceived income adequacy seems a rather helpful method. This paper uses longitudinal data of persons aged 50 years and older in different countries from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) over seven waves. The results show that a low income, low net worth, a poor self-reported health (SRH) and unemployment are the strongest predictors of perceived income adequacy. Further, this paper concluded that the different age groups report different when looking at whether an individual has difficulties when making ends meet. Respondents aged 80 years and older report less financial difficulty, especially when these individual report to have a poor SRH.