Descriptive statistics of the sample (SHARE, wave 4, 2011, 16 countries)
| Variables | |
| GP visits*, median/25th centile/75th centile/mean (SD) | 3/2/6/5.08 (7.38) |
| Female, N (%) | 31 969 (56.10) |
| Age in years†, mean (SD) | 66.37 (10.05) |
| Education‡ (ISCED-1997 coding: 0=low – 6=high), mean (SD) | 2.77 (1.44) |
| Preprimary | 1682 (2.95) |
| ISCED-1997 code 1 (primary) | 10 943 (19.20) |
| ISCED-1997 code 2 (lower-secondary) | 10 804 (18.96) |
| ISCED-1997 code 3 (upper-secondary) | 18 751 (32.90) |
| ISCED-1997 code 4 (postsecondary and non-tertiary) | 2597 (4.56) |
| ISCED-1997 code 5 (first stage of tertiary) | 10 514 (18.45) |
| ISCED-1997 code 6 (second stage of tertiary) | 454 (0.80) |
| Job status§, N (%) | |
| Employed | 14 736 (25.86) |
| Retired | 35 207 (61.78) |
| Unemployed | 1.821 (3,20) |
| Permanently sick or disabled | 1.863 (3.27) |
| Homemaker | 2265 (3.97) |
| Income: make ends meet¶, N (%) | |
| With great or some difficulty | 22 319 (39.16) |
| Fairly easy or easy | 33 157 (58.18) |
| Self-rated health (0=poor to 4=excellent)**, mean (SD) | 1.74 (1.08) |
| Poor | 7307 (12.82) |
| Fair | 16 841 (29.55) |
| Good | 19 754 (34.66) |
| Very good | 9066 (15.91) |
| Excellent | 3744 (6.57) |
| Social Integration Index (0=low to 6=high)††, mean (SD) | 3.55 (1.39) |
| Average of social contact frequency in social network (0=less than once per month or never to 5=daily)‡‡, mean (SD) | 4.07 (0.99) |
| Number of very to extremely close people in the social network (0–7)§§, mean (SD) | 2.16 (1.45) |
| Unweighted sample (number of observations) | n=56 989 |
Missing values (out of 56 989): *7296, †5 , ‡1244, §1097, ¶1513, **277, ††1024, ‡‡4451, §§3385.
GP, general practitioner; ISCED, International Standard Classification of Education; SHARE, Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe.