Fulltext

Can We Trust Older People's Statements on Their Childhood Circumstances? Evidence from SHARELIFE

Havari, Enkelejda ; Mazzonna, Fabrizio

In: European Journal of Population, 2015, vol. 31, no. 3, p. 233-257

Add to personal list
    Title
    • Can We Trust Older People's Statements on Their Childhood Circumstances? Evidence from SHARELIFE
    Author
    • Havari, Enkelejda. European Commission - Joint Research Centre, Ispra, VA, Italy
    • Mazzonna, Fabrizio. Università della Svizzera Italiana (USI), Lugano, Switzerland
    Document Type
    • Postprint
    OAI-PMH Identifier
    • oai:doc.rero.ch:331186
    Summary
    This paper analyzes the quality of subjective assessments related to childhood circumstances when provided by old-age individuals. Early life events are important for social scientists to predict individual outcomes later in life and because of data restrictions, retrospective assessments are often used. Nevertheless, there is widespread skepticism on the ability of old-age respondents to recall with good accuracy events occurred many years ago. Using data from the survey of health, aging and retirement in Europe (SHARE), we assess the internal and external consistency of some measures of childhood health and socio-economic status. Our study suggests that overall respondents seem to remember fairly well their health status and their living conditions between age 0-15. Applying a cross-country comparison (13 European countries), we analyse within survey responses with external historical data (e.g., GDP per capita in period 1926-1956) at a country and cohort level. Our results should mitigate some of the doubts on retrospective data collection and promote their use for research purposes.