Health Inequality in Germany

Pension reforms in Germany decreased benefit generosity and increased the retirement age since the 1980s. Decreasing benefit generosity may result in fewer out-of-pocket expenditures for healthcare, and later retirement ages imply a longer time in arduous jobs for many individuals. Both will most likely affect older individuals in the lower income brackets more than richer individuals. The question to be answered by this paper is therefore whether these reforms increased health inequality for retirees.
We use SHARE data from 2004 through 2022, five different health measures, and three different ways to characterize health inequality. We neither find a systematic pattern nor a statistically significant measure that would indicate that health inequality has increased from 2004 to 2022.