Quality of Life and Management of Living Resources Programme (1998-2002)

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QUALITY OF LIFE AND MANAGEMENT OF LIVING RESOURCES PROGRAMME (1998-2002)

PERIODIC REPORT

Contract number:QLK6-CT-2002-002426

Project acronym:AMANDA

QoL action line:KEY ACTION 6: THE AGEING POPULATION

AND THEIR DISABILITIES

(state to which key action, generic activity etc the project belongs)

Reporting period:1 JANUARY 2003– 31 MARCH 2006

(dd/mm/yy-dd/mm/yy)

SECTION I: PROJECT IDENTIFICATION

Contract number: QLK6-CT-2002-002426
(include reference to complementary contracts–e.g. fellowships, INCO)
Title of the project: Advanced Multidisciplinary Analysis of New Data on Ageing
(as in the contract)
Acronym of the project: AMANDA
(as in the contract)
Type of contract: RTD-project
(e.g. RTD project, demonstration project, thematic network, concerted action…)
QoL action line: Key action 6.3: Demographic and social policy aspects of population ageing
(state to which key action, generic activity etc this contract belongs)
Commencement date: 1 January 2003
(DD/MM/YY: normally the first day of the month following the signature by all parties, unless otherwise stated in the contract)
Duration: 39 months
(in months)
Total project costs: 3.232.591
(in euro)
EU contribution: 2.999.612
(in euro)
Project co-ordinator:

• Name (including title): Prof. Axel Börsch-Supan PhD
• Organisation:Mannheim Research Institute for the Economics of Aging, Mannheim University
• Postal address: L13, 17 D-68131 Mannheim, Germany
• Telephone: +49 621 181 1861
• Telefax: +49 621 181 2122
• E-mail:

Keywords: ageing, health, retirement
( list up to five keywords that best describe the project)
World wide web address:
(Internet address where regularly updated information on the project can be obtained)
List of participants:
(provide same details as for the co-ordinator)
(2) Prof. Johan Mackenbach
Department of Public Health, Erasmus Medical Centre, University Rotterdam,
Dr. Molewaterplein 50, PO Box 1738, NL-3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Tel: + 31-10-408-7714; Fax: +31-10-408-9449; Email:
(3) Prof.Martin Prince
Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London,
De Crespigny Park, SE5 8AF London, United Kingdom
Tel: +44-20-7848-0137: Fax: +44-20-7277-0283: Email:
(4) Prof. Johannes Siegrist
Department of Medical Sociology, University of Düsseldorf,
PO Box 10 10 07, D-40001 Düsseldorf, Germany
Tel: +49-211-81-14360/61; Fax: +49-211-81-12390; Email:
(5) Prof. Claudine Attias-Donfut
Ensans, Environnement, Santé et Societé,
Avenue Emile Boissier 9 44000 Nantes, France
Tel: +33-1-53-92-50-20: Fax: +33-1-53-92-50-26; Email:
(6) Prof. Alberto Holly
Institut d’Economie et Management de la Santé (IEMS), Université de Lausanne,
Rue du Bugnon 21, CH-1005 Lausanne, Switzerland
Tel: +4121-692-34-82; Fax: +4121-692-33-65; Email:
(7) Prof. Anders Klevmarken
Department of Economics, University of Uppsala,
Kyrkogaardsgatan 10, S-75120 Uppsala, Sweden
Tel: +46-18-471-2386; Fax: +46-18-471-1478; Email:
(8) Prof. Martin Browning
Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen
Studiesraede 6, DK-1455 Copenhagen, Denmark
Tel: +45-3-532-3070; Fax: +45-3-532-3064; Email:
(9) Prof. Agar Brugiavini
Department of Economics, Universita’ “Ca’ Foscari” di Venezia,
San Giobbe 873 I-30121 Venezia, Italy
Tel: +39-041-2349162; Fax: +39-041-2349176; Email:
(10) Prof. Guglielmo Weber
Department of Economics, University of Padua,
Via del Santo 33, I-35123 Padova, Italy
Tel: +39-49-8274271; Fax: +39-49-8274221; Email:
(11)Prof. Kaare Christensen
Institute of Public Health, Epidemiology, University of Southern Denmark,
Sdr. Boulevard 23A, DK-5000 Odense C, Denmark
Tel: +45-6550-3049/3029; Fax: +45-6590-6938; Email:
(12) Prof. Arthur van Soest
CentER, Tilburg University,
Warandelaan 2 PO Box 90153 NL-5037 AB Tilburg, The Netherlands
Tel: +31-13-466-2028; Fax: +31-13-466-3280; Email:

SECTION II: PROJECT PROGRESS REPORT

Table of contents

1. OVERVIEW OF PROGRESS DURING THE REPORTING PERIOD

2. STATUS OF THE INDIVIDUAL WORK PACKAGES

3. CONTRIBUTION OF THE PARTICIPANTS

4. PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND CO-ORDINATION

5. EXPLOITATION AND DISSEMINATION ACTIVITIES

6. ETHICAL ASPECTS AND SAFETY PROVISIONS

7. MID-TERM REVIEW

8. conclusions

9. acknowledgements......

1.OVERVIEW OF PROGRESS DURING THE REPORTING PERIOD

- Summarize the main objectives of the project for this reporting period:

An overarching aim of the analyses in the AMANDA project is to understand how the diverse historical, cultural and institutional settings – for example the diverse welfare policies and their current reforms – influence the ageing process of individuals and societies. The AMANDA analyses heavily rely on cross-national variation to identify causal effects of policy interventions. Cross-national analysis provides chances and poses challenges. They are the aim of the project.

The AMANDA project has two specific objectives:

• To conduct multidisciplinary and cross-country analyses to shed light on individual behaviour in areas such as social participation, active and healthy ageing, health care utilisation, health and socio-economic status, retirement, consumption and savings, and family transfers of money and time.
• To develop “indicators” for key concepts relevant to EU policy, e.g. retirement incentives, savings adequacy, disability status, and well-being of the elderly. These indicators will be cross-nationally comparable and easily derivable from the newly collected survey data.

Three organising principles motivate our scientific approach:

• Setting up a multidisciplinary research agenda on key scientific and policy issues that relate to the ageing of society.
• Assembling an international and multidisciplinary team of researchers based on existing successful cross-national collaboration.
• Exploiting a number of newly collected internationally comparable, multidisciplinary micro data on the elderly, including the prototype wave of the Survey on Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), first wave of the English Longitudinal Study on Ageing (ELSA), the latest waves of the US Health and Retirement Study (HRS), and several national data sets that combine information on health and socio-economic status.

The multidisciplinary research agenda of the project has addressed a coherent set of key scientific and policy issues relating to the ageing of society and its implications for national and EU policy.

More researchers in demography, economics, epidemiology, psychology, and sociology have been added to the team in an open multidisciplinary environment where data and results are shared freely.

A set of key variables (“indicators”) to measure successful ageing has been produced. While some of these indicators may already be available in some form in some countries, these measures were systematically produced for all the countries involved according to predefined templates, founded them on our behavioural analyses, such as country-specific indicators of the incentives to retire early.

The main objectives in the extension period of 3 months year (2006) were:

• Organise of conferences and workshops. All these activities aim at maximising academic interaction and the exchange of ideas and new findings and, in particular, organise a final conference, where the results of the project are presented to and discussed with representatives form the different DGs of the European Commission, that have showed an interest in the project and with representatives from the HRS and the ELSA studies.

• Continuing dissemination of the projects’ results.

• Organising information streams for and to the participants/working groups in the project.
• Continue publishing the results of the project through the usual academic channels, including scientific journals, books, edited volumes, working papers available on websites, and also for audiences of policy makers and interest groups.

- Provide an overview of the scientific progress of the project as a whole in the reporting period, highlighting any significant achievement and, where relevant, their potential social and economic impact

The 12 multi-national working groups formed at the beginning of the project have been responsible for the substantive analyses and construct the indicators as defined by the work package assigned to each working group. The working groups consist of some 8-10 specialists in their fields, drawing not only from the countries involved in the project, but also from outside countries. High scientific standing in each researcher’s field was the point of departure and the guiding principle in forming the working groups. The Federal Office for Education and Science (OFES) continued the financial support for the Swiss participation to the project. The Swiss team has also received funding from the Swiss Federal University Conference (CUS/SUK) for the participation of members of other universities, which are partners of the Swiss Network Health Economics (NHE).

The total number of researchers involved in either a working group or a country team is about 150. In addition, there exists a core management group, which is the main guiding body of the project. Next to the co-ordinator of the project, it has six well-known and experienced members (Agar Brugiavini, Arie Kapteyn, Stefania Maggi, Sir Michael Marmot, James Nazroo, and Jean-Marie Robine). Finally, we have assembled various ad hoc advisory committees, notably the HRS advisory group (led by Michael Hurd and Robert Willis, the current principal investigators of the US Health and Retirement Survey), the ELSA advisory group (led by Richard Blundell and James Banks, the current principal investigators of the English Longitudinal Study on Ageing).

The three elements of constructing a cross-nationally comparable survey consist of a common survey instrument, a cross-nationally comparable sampling scheme, and harmonised interviewing procedures. Departing from the SHARE raw data, the AMANDA project generated cross-nationally comparable indicators. Since the AMANDA project puts special emphasis on crosscutting analyses encompassing health as well as socio-economic factors, particular attention was given to cross national comparability of health measures. They include attempts to cope with differential item functioning and attempts to compensate for the subjectivity of self-assessed health ratings through physical measures.

Core of the work plan in the reporting period was to finalise work on the analysis of main study database, work on data harmonisation, realise imputations and to finalise defining "indicators" resulting from all of this, such as the net/gross income and asset levels and to have a final meeting on the project’s results and compare these with other datasets, notably that of the HRS and the ELSA study.

On 23 - 25 February, 2006 we have organised the final AMANDA meeting in Varenna, Italy, for a broader audience of European policy makers and scientists to present the results and preliminary analyses of the project to the research and policy community. Representatives from DG Employment, Ralf Jacob, Head of the Unit Social and Demographic Analysis, and Ana Xavier, Policy Officer Health care systems, DG ECFIN Declan Costello, Head of the Unit Structural Reform Policy Strategy, and the Chairman of the EU Social Protection Committee, David Stanton, discussed the scientific papers in order to link the AMANDA scientific results to policy aspects. After the meeting, a special brochure containing the executive summaries of the papers of the final AMANDA conference, entitled: “Lessons from the 2004 Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe” was produced and distributed to European and member state policymakers.

The results of the AMANDA project were presented at several policy and scientific meetings, both in Brussels and in the participating countries.

The last couple of months of the project, the coordinator presented its results at several DGs of the European Commission, among which ECFIN, EMPL, SANCO, RESEARCH, and EUROSTAT. The project was also presented at the AGE-Intergroup of Members of European Parliament.

On 25 January 2006: Axel Boersch Supan gave a presentation of SHARE results at the Indicators Subgroup of t he Social Protection Committee.

Rob Alessie gave a presentation of the SHARE results for the European branch of the AARP.

Finally, many national presentations were organised, notably in Sweden, Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands, and Italy, as well as a presentation to the director and the deputy director of the US National Institute on Aging, Bethesda, MD.

Meanwhile, during the last months of the project, the final working group meetings of the twelve working groups have taken place, organised de-centrally by the working group leaders. Also, combined crosscutting working groups have worked on finalising technical aspects such as data management and response analysis of the pilot data.

Further to the publication on the first results and preliminary analyses about the SHARE and AMANDA projects, we have compiled and circulated a publication on the methods used in the projects, in order to give more insights in the developments process, and the methods used to scientists and policy makers. (The Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, Methodology, Axel Börsch-Supan, Hendrik Jürges, eds.).

We disseminated our progress in presentations and seminars. Moreover, we have posted results, drafts of analyses, milestones and deliverables on the Internet site to facilitate information sharing and feedback. We have an open structure, which has allowed many external researchers to participate. This led to participation of Austria and Belgium with national funding. It also led to a submission to the German Israeli Foundation (GIF) for an Israeli AMANDA.

Meanwhile, many other countries have shown an interest of joining efforts of the group, notably, Poland, the Czech Republic, Ireland, Slovenia, and Finland. A Polish and a Czech partner are involved in future projects and preparatory discussions are underway with Irish, and Slovenian prospect partners.

The imputations group of the AMANDA-project has continued imputing missing variables throughout the data in a cross-nationally consistent fashion. Imputed values are flagged and researchers have the choice of using the imputed values or not. The imputations rest on a complex iterative and multivariate algorithm that is based on Hoynes, Hurd and Chand (1998) and the work by Arthur Kennickel on the US Survey of Consumer Finances and is made available in Release 1.

In the AMANDA project the following indicators were developed:

Household Type; Education; Occupation; Health Indicators (Physical & Mental Health, Cognitive Function, Behavioural Risks); Social Support; Income; Household level indicators and Weights. These are all described in more detail in the annual report over 2005.

- Compare progress achieved against the activities planned for the period, indicating significant difficulties or delays encountered the activities thus affected and actions taken to remedy them.

Looking at the time line lined out in the Technical Appendix, reproduced below, as far as progress of the projects mentioned there is concerned, we have achieved the aims of the project. We have also fulfilled the milestones for the last reporting period (see update table 3), for which the 3-months extension was granted.

Provide an update of tables 1, 2, and 3 from the technical annex of your contract, concerning deliverables, work packages and milestones, indicating in these updated tables the current status of the relevant tasks.

Update table 1: Working packages

Participant / WP / Planned allocation months Total / Actual allocation 2003 / Actual allocation 2004 / Actual allocation 2005 / Actual allocation 2006
Total / Charge / own / charged / total / own / charged / total / own / charged / total / own / charged / total / Total
CR1: UniMann / 1 / 83,0 / 44,0 / 12,8 / 16,2 / 29,0 / 13,0 / 12,0 / 25,0 / 12,0 / 22,1 / 34,1 / 6,0 / 6,2 / 12,2 / 100,3
CR 2: Eras Med C / 2 / 63,0 / 24,0 / 12,9 / 7,1 / 20,0 / 13,0 / 12,8 / 25,8 / 12,0 / 15,5 / 27,5 / 1,0 / 1,3 / 2,3 / 75,5
CR 3: InstPsych / 3 / 63,0 / 24,0 / 12,9 / 3,1 / 16,0 / 13,0 / 6,6 / 19,6 / 12,0 / 13,1 / 25,1 / 1,0 / 1,0 / 2,0 / 62,7
CR 4: UniDuess / 4 / 63,0 / 24,0 / 12,2 / 4,8 / 17,0 / 13,0 / 14,3 / 27,3 / 12,0 / 19,3 / 31,3 / 0,5 / 0,0 / 0,5 / 76,1
CR 5: Ensans / 5 / 79,8 / 32,0 / 15,0 / 5,0 / 20,0 / 15,9 / 13,7 / 29,6 / 12,0 / 6,1 / 18,1 / 0,5 / 0,6 / 1,1 / 68,8
CR 6: UniL-IEMS / 6 / 64,4 / 33,0 / 10,0 / 0,0 / 10,0 / 10,5 / 14,5 / 24,9 / 12,0 / 13,4 / 25,4 / 3,0 / 7,8 / 10,7 / 71,0
CR 7: UniUpps / 7 / 75,0 / 36,0 / 12,9 / 2,1 / 15,0 / 13,0 / 0,0 / 13,0 / 12,0 / 17,3 / 29,3 / 2,0 / 3,6 / 5,6 / 62,9
CR 8: UniCopen / 8 / 75,0 / 36,0 / 13,0 / 4,0 / 17,0 / 13,0 / 11,6 / 24,6 / 12,0 / 13,8 / 25,8 / 0,5 / 0,0 / 0,5 / 67,9
CR 9: UniVenice / 9 / 71,8 / 24,0 / 15,3 / 7,7 / 23,0 / 15,9 / 12,0 / 27,9 / 12,0 / 13,7 / 25,7 / 1,0 / 1,0 / 2,0 / 78,7
CR 10: UniPadua / 10 / 83,8 / 36,0 / 15,4 / 1,6 / 17,0 / 15,9 / 10,5 / 26,4 / 12,0 / 22,3 / 34,3 / 1,0 / 1,0 / 2,0 / 79,7
CR 11: SDU / 11 / 63,0 / 24,0 / 13,5 / 6,5 / 20,0 / 13,0 / 7,7 / 20,7 / 12,0 / 10,8 / 22,8 / 1,0 / 1,7 / 2,7 / 66,2
CR 12: UniTilb / 12 / 75,0 / 36,0 / 13,0 / 3,0 / 16,0 / 13,0 / 12,0 / 25,0 / 12,0 / 19,0 / 31,0 / 2,0 / 3,0 / 5,0 / 77,0
ALL / 859,8 / 373,0 / 158,8 / 61,2 / 220,0 / 162,3 / 127,7 / 290,0 / 144,0 / 186,3 / 330,3 / 19,5 / 27,2 / 46,6 / 886,9

Update table 2: List of deliverables

Deliverable No / Deliverable title / Delivery
date[1] / Nature[2] / Dissemi-nation level[3]
D1 / Assembly of working groups and advisory boards / 1 / O / RE
D2 / Papers and indicators of physical health / 10,16,22,28,34 / R / PU
D3 / Papers/indicators of mental and psychological health / 10,16,22,28,34 / R / PU
D4 / Papers/indicators of well-being and social productivity / 10,16,22,28,34 / R / PU
D5 / Papers/indicators of family networks and transfers / 10,16,22,28,34 / R / PU
D6 / Papers/indicators of health services utilisation / 10,16,22,28,34 / R / PU
D7 / Papers/indicators of socio-economic status / 10,16,22,28,34 / R / PU
D8 / Papers/indicators of consumption behaviour / 10,16,22,28,34 / R / PU
D9 / Papers/indicators of labour force participation and pensions / 10,16,22,28,34 / R / PU
D10 / Papers/indicators of assets and expectations / 10,16,22,28,34 / R / PU
D11 / Papers/indicators tailored to the oldest old / 10,16,22,28,34 / R / PU
D12 / Centrally managed data base / 17, 35 / O / PU
D13 / Web-based documentation and dissemination system / 3, 6 / O / PU
D14 / Quarterly newsletters / 3,6,9,12,15,18,21,24,27,30,33,35 / R / PU
D15 / Report on project quality control / 39 / R / RE
D16 / Report on cross-national comparability of analyses / 39 / R / PU
D17 / Report on cross-national comparability of indicators / 39 / R / PU

Deliverable D1 Assembly of working groups and advisory boards.

The working groups and advisory boards have been formed and maintained according to the plan and they can be found on the website of the project

The AMANDA project is closely interlinked with the SHARE project. The Country Teams in the SHARE project coordinate the national and institutional aspects of the project, while the Working Groups, which are the partners in AMANDA, produce the indicators and prepare their analysis. The close linkage is a crucial design feature of the AMANDA research project: we believe that scientific analyses of data and scientific instrument design are equally important components of empirical research.

The AMANDA Working Groups have helped to create the indicators and prepared the analysis of the pilot- and the pre-test data of SHARE, and proposed better and more indicators for the main survey, which is currently taking place.

During the third year (2005) of the AMANDA project, the deliverables D2: Papers and indicators of physical health, D3: Papers/indicators of mental and psychological health, D4: Papers/indicators of well-being and social productivity, D5: Papers/indicators of family networks and transfers, D6:Papers/indicators of health services utilisation, D7: Papers/indicators of socio-economic status, D8: Papers/indicators of consumption behaviour, D9:Papers/indicators of labour force participation and pensions, D10: Papers/indicators of assets and expectations, D11: Papers/indicators tailored to the oldest old have been the indicators, which were refined after the pilot of SHARE and once again after the pre-test. Documentation of these deliverables – about 45 papers on all dimensions covered by the data – is contained in the final version of “The First Results Book” presented at the Brussels conference on 28 April 2005.