Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE)

Abstract

The Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) is a unique multidisciplinary and cross-national panel database of ex ante harmonized microdata on health, socioeconomic status, and social and family networks covering most of the European Union and Israel. To date, SHARE has collected five waves of data in 2-year intervals since 2004, including current living circumstances and retrospective life histories. A sixth wave is currently (2015) in the field. Four additional waves are planned until 2024. More than 230,000 interviews conducted so far give a broad picture of life after age 50, measuring physical and mental health, both objectively and subjectively; economic and noneconomic activities, income, and wealth by sources; intergenerational transfers of time and money within and outside of the family; as well as life satisfaction and well-being. The data are available to the scientific community free of charge at www.share-project.org after registration. SHARE is harmonized with the US Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) and has become a role model for several aging surveys worldwide. SHARE’s scientific power is based on its panel design that grasps the dynamic character of the aging process, its multidisciplinary approach that delivers the full picture of the individual and societal aging, and its cross-nationally ex ante harmonized design that permits international comparisons of health, economic, and social outcomes in Europe and the USA. Due to their harmonization, the SHARE data and their international sisters encompass a worldwide “historical laboratory” to assess the effects of different policies on health, socioeconomic status, and well-being after age 50. To date (May 2015), more than 1,200 SHARE-based publications assess the chances and challenges of individual and societal aging by exploiting the links between health, economic, and social conditions over the life course observable in SHARE. Among the key findings is a European North–South gradient in many more dimensions than previously documented. In addition to the well-known income gradient, the health and wellbeing differences between North and South contradict mortality data and folklore about healthy Mediterranean lifestyle. SHARE has sparked an entire new area of research by revealing a strong correlation between early retirement and the loss of cognitive abilities, social contacts, and well-