Rainer Gabriel

• PhD Socioeconomics
• Docent at ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences

Working life is associated with lifestyle, screening uptake, and occupational health risks that may explain differences in cancer onset. To better understand the association between working life and cancer risk, we need to account for the entire employment history. We investigated whether lifetime employment trajectories are associated with cancer...

Working life is associated with lifestyle, screening uptake, and occupational health risks that may explain differences in cancer onset. To better understand the association between working life and cancer risk, we need to account for the entire employment history. We investigated whether lifetime employment trajectories are associated with cancer...

Coherently with the life course perspective that studies individual life trajectories embedded in sociohistorical changes, this chapter offers a synthesis on the long-term dynamics of vulnerabilities in old age that are associated with a deficit of reserves. In a first time, we investigate how economic, social and health reserves have been unevenly...

Die Studie zeigt, dass die schweizerische soziale Sicherheit einen wichtigen Beitrag zur finanziellen Absicherung der Hinterlassenen mit geringen oder sehr geringen finanziellen Mitteln leistet. Haushalte, deren Mitglieder eine Hinterlassenenrente beziehen und im erwerbsfähigen Alter sind, befinden sich in der gleichen oder sogar in einer leicht be...

Introduction: We investigated the mediating role of leisure activity engagement as marker of cognitive reserve in the relation between neighborhood socio-economic position (SEP) and cognitive decline over 6 years. Methods: The study analyzed longitudinal data from 897 older adults who participated in the two waves (2011 and 2017) of the Vivre-Le...

Objectives: This study aimed to examine the cumulative disadvantage of different forms of childhood misfortune and adult-life socioeconomic conditions with regard to trajectories and levels of self-rated health in old age and whether these associations differed between welfare regimes (Scandinavian, Bismarckian, Southern European, and Eastern Euro...

Objectives: This study aimed to assess whether cumulative disadvantage in childhood misfortune and adult-life socioeconomic conditions influence the risk of frailty in old age and whether welfare regimes influence these associations. Methods: Data from 23358 participants aged 50 years and older included in the longitudinal SHARE survey were used...

Background. Welfare regimes in Europe modify individuals’ socioeconomic trajectories over their life-course, and, ultimately, the link between socioeconomic circumstances (SECs) and health. This paper aimed to assess whether the associations between life-course SECs (early-life, young adult-life, middle age and old age) and risk of poor self-rated...

Significance There is increasing evidence that socioeconomic conditions early in life have an impact on cognitive functioning in later life. Based on the large longitudinal sample from SHARE we find a clear pattern in cognitive functioning in old age, related to childhood socioeconomic conditions: Those from more affluent households show higher lev...

Objectives: This paper aimed to assess associations of childhood socioeconomic conditions (CSC) with the risk of frailty in old age and whether adulthood socioeconomic conditions (ASC) influence this association. Methods: Data from 21 185 individuals aged 50 years and older included in the longitudinal Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in E...

Objective: The adverse effects of anxiety on cognition are widely recognized. According to Attentional Control Theory, worry (i.e. facet of cognitive anxiety) is the component that is responsible for these effects, and working memory capacity (WMC) plays an important role in regulating them. Despite the increasing importance of this problem with ag...

Background We observed a lack of population-based longitudinal research examining the association of disadvantaged childhood socioeconomic circumstances (CSC) and disability [activities of daily living (ADL) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADL)] in older age, and whether socioeconomic attainments in adulthood can compensate for a poor...

Background. Socioeconomic circumstances during a person’s lifespan influence a wide range of health outcomes. However, solid evidence of the association of early- and adult-life socioeconomic circumstances with health trajectories in ageing is still lacking. This study assessed whether early-life socioeconomic circumstances are associated with mus...

Background: Recently, Paggi et al. (Gerontology 2016;62:450-458) for the very first time showed in a cross-sectional sample of 259 adults aged 18 to 81 years that the relation of physical health to psychological well-being was mediated via frequency of leisure activity participation. Objective: To extend this framework, we followed theories on succ...

This article combines an inter- and an intra-cohort perspective to study economic vulnerability in old age. The theoretical background is given through the combination of a social stratification framework and an institutional perspective emphasizing life course policies. At the macro level, the increase in overall education levels and the implement...

Aims: The present study set out to investigate the relation of obesity to performance in verbal abilities, processing speed, and cognitive flexibility and its interplay with key correlates of cognitive reserve in a large sample of older adults. Methods: A total of 2,812 older adults served as a sample for the present study. Psychometric tests on...

Background: The role of timing of retirement on cognitive functioning in old age is inconclusive so far. Therefore, the present study set out to investigate the association of timing of retirement with cognitive performance and its interplay with key correlates of cognitive reserve in a large sample of older adults. Methods: Two thousand two hun...

This chapter focuses on the “Vivre-Leben-Vivere” (VLV) research and explains how the team in charge has dealt with the issue of representing old people in Switzerland and the vulnerable persons within this population. For this purpose, we draw inspiration from the “total survey error” perspective and discuss the procedures that were used to collect...

p>This chapter discusses the rationale for the use of life history calendars in studying social and psychological vulnerability. Pragmatic and substantive aspects suggest that life history calendars are powerful tools for retrospective surveys on vulnerability. Life history calendars are substantially more cost-effective and easier to implement tha...

p>The aim of this article is to investigate the factors underlying old-age poverty, with particular emphasis on its construction along the life course. We focus on the question whether the inclusion of life course information could explain social and gender differences in old-age poverty in Switzerland. Our results suggest that poverty in old-age p...