Socioeconomic Disparities in Cognitive Functioning Trajectories Among Older Filipinos: Applying the Characteristics Approach

Health functioning declines with age, but there are disparities in its progression with regard to socioeconomic status, particularly education attainment, income, and wealth. This paper focused on the use of the characteristics approach to present the trajectories of cognitive performance among older adults with different education and wealth levels in the Philippines. Using an analytical sample of 5209 adults aged at least 60 years, extracted from the first wave of the 2018 Longitudinal Study on Ageing and Health in the Philippines, it was observed that having higher levels of education delayed lower cognitive performance, whereby men had further gains than women. Greater wealth and income were also shown to slow diminishing cognitive performance, and women gained more in this regard. Viewing health only from an age perspective is limiting; and the results show that the older population is heterogeneous and social gradients exhibit disparities in health performance at later ages.