Thijs van den Broek

• PhD
• Professor (Assistant) at Erasmus University Rotterdam

The impact that providing care to ageing parents has on adult children's lives may depend on the long-term care (LTC) context. A common approach to test this is to compare whether the impact of care-giving varies between countries with different LTC coverage. However, this approach leaves considerable room for omitted variable bias. We use individu...

Levels of later-life loneliness are high in Eastern Europe. We assess whether having more children is protective against later-life loneliness for Eastern-European mothers and fathers. Drawing on Generations and Gender Surveys data of 25,479 parents aged 50–80 from eight Eastern-European countries, we adopt an instrumental approach exploiting paren...

Women of Turkish and Moroccan origin in the Netherlands are relatively likely to have an unhealthy bodyweight. This study sheds light on how ethnic differences in parity, i.e., the number of times a female carried pregnancies to a viable gestational age, contribute to body mass index (BMI) differences between Turkish-born and Moroccan-born mothers...

Despite the growing acknowledgment of the importance of loneliness among older individuals, questionnaire length constraints may hinder the inclusion of common multi-item loneliness scales in surveys. Direct, single-item loneliness measures are a practical alternative, but scholars have expressed concerns that such measures may lead to underreporti...

Objectives This study examines the association between family structure and subjective well-being by focusing on the moderating effects of social connectedness across genders and country contexts. We compare the well-being of older adults across four family types: those with both a partner and children, those with a partner but not children, those...

This study assesses trends in regular (i.e., at least weekly) sports participation among people aged 55 + in the Netherlands. It also examines later-life sports participation differences between native Dutch people and their counterparts in four groups with a non-Western migration background (Turkish; Moroccan; Surinamese; Dutch Caribbean), and on...

Objective Sports participation is lower in people of Turkish and Moroccan origin in the Netherlands than in native Dutch people. Addressing this inequality calls for better insights into antecedents of sports participation in different ethnic groups. Theorists suggested that loneliness may hamper sports participation, and levels of loneliness are h...

Background Healthcare professionals working in long-term care facilities reported heavy job demands and a lack of job resources during the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. However, how job demands and resources in these facilities changed during the pandemic, and how possible changes affected professionals’ work-related well-being, rem...

De levenskwaliteit van oudere Turkse migranten in Nederland ligt vaak lager dan van oudere Nederlanders zonder migratieachtergrond. Het ontwikkelen van initiatieven ter verbetering van het latere leven van Turkse migranten vraagt om inzicht in wat binnen deze groep als belangrijke aspecten van goed ouder worden wordt gezien, maar hierover is nog we...

Background We assess whether social integration is associated with mental health among Somali refugees in the Netherlands, and how this association is shaped by perceived discrimination. Methods We performed linear regression and formal mediation analyses on Survey Integration Minorities data (n = 417) to assess whether the effects of two facets o...

Objectives: Against the background of the growing recognition of the need for a holistic perspective on health behaviour, we aim to identify longitudinal patterns of multiple health behaviours, and to assess associations of such patterns with depressive symptoms among older people in China. Methods: Using three waves of China Health and Retireme...

Background: The current study aimed to prospectively assess bodyweight change following the implementation of lockdown measures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic in the Netherlands and to explore the potentially moderating role of gender in this association. Design: Using Dutch DNB Household Survey panel data collected between 1993 and 2020, we e...

Objective This study explores barriers and motivators to use self-sampling kits for human papillomavirus testing for cervical cancer screening as perceived by Dutch women of Turkish and Moroccan origin living in the Netherlands. Methods A total of 11 in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted and structured according to the theory of plann...

An important aspect of the transnational lives of Polish migrants in the Netherlands is their frequent use of healthcare services in Poland. Transnational care use may be detrimental for the continuity and the quality of the care migrants receive. The current study aims to shed light on the antecedents of migrants' doctor visits in Poland. Drawing...

Many older women in Europe are overweight or obese. One of the factors linked to overweight and obesity among older women is childbearing. However, results of observational studies on the association between women’s number of children and excess weight should be interpreted with caution, because they may be prone to bias due to residual confounders...

Objectives: Drawing on UK Household Longitudinal Study data, this study assessed a pathway from early-life disadvantage to suboptimal later-life health via health behavior. Methods: Latent class analysis was used to identify distinct smoking, nutrition, alcohol, and physical activity health behavior profiles. Mediation analyses were performed to as...

Background This study assessed the extent to which persistent differences in self-rated health (SRH) between older immigrants and natives are attributable to negative and positive ageing perceptions. Methods The study was conducted with three population groups in Rotterdam, the Netherlands: native Dutch people aged ≥70 years ( n = 1150), Turkish i...

Aim Workloads and other job demands jeopardize nurses’ well‐being, especially during evening shifts when there are less resources than during the day. The current study aims to shed light on how the addition of a nurse assistant to ward staffing during evening shifts has an impact on nurses’ perceptions of job demands, job resources, and well‐being...

Objectives: Members of the baby boom cohorts had fewer children than their parents. Given that adult children are an important source of social support in later life, this may have implications for the mental health of new cohorts of older people. This study investigates whether having additional children protects white mothers aged 65 and older ag...

The number of older people who experience marital break-up has increased in many Western countries. However, limited empirical attention has been given to the study of the consequences of later-life divorce or separation. Previous studies on gray divorce are often cross-sectional and tend to capture a mix of short- and long-term effects of divorce...

The Netherlands traditionally had Retirementearly early Earlyretirement possibilities. Several reforms introduced from the late 1990s onward contributed to the successful reversal of this early Earlyexit trend. As a result, in 2018, Employees on average retired at age 65.0, representing a three-year increase in the last ten years. This chapter desc...

Later-life loneliness is increasingly recognized as an important public health issue. In this study, we examine whether having more children and grandchildren is protective against later life loneliness in a group of Eastern and Western European countries. Drawing on data from the Generation and Gender Surveys, we estimated logistic regression mode...

We investigate how daughters’ feelings of loneliness are impacted when widowed parents develop health limitations, and when daughters take on personal care tasks in response. Using longitudinal data from daughters of widowed parents drawn from the French Family and Intergenerational Relationships Study (ERFI, 1485 observations nested in 557 daughte...

Wetenschappers en beleidsmakers hebben steeds meer aandacht voor de bijdrage die de inrichting van de leefomgeving kan leveren aan de levenskwaliteit van ouderen. Sterk verstedelijkte gebieden mogen zich op aanmerkelijk meer aandacht verheugen dan landelijke gebieden. Als reden hiervoor worden vaak demografische ontwikkelingen genoemd, specifiek de...

Objectives: Maternal malnutrition during pregnancy may have long-lasting effects on offspring's mental health. We investigate the effect of prenatal exposure to the Dutch famine (mid November 1944 to late April 1945) on mental health in later mid-life. Methods: Data are from the Netherlands Kinship Panel Study (n = 642). We use difference-in-differ...

Background: Research using nonmigrant samples indicates that having a partner and children is protective against loneliness. Such beneficial effects may be weaker for migrants with partners and/or children living in different countries. Objective: We assess how feelings of loneliness among Polish migrants in the Netherlands compare to levels among...

Recent long-term care (LTC) reforms in the Netherlands are illustrative of those taking place in countries with a universalistic LTC model based on extensive provision of state-supported services. They entail a shift from de-familialisation, in which widely available state-supported LTC services relieve family members from the obligations to care f...

Objective: This study aimed to explore gender differences in the correlates of loneliness among Japanese persons aged 50-70. Methods: Logistic regression models were estimated on cross-sectional Japanese Generations and Gender Survey data of 4057 persons aged 50-70. Loneliness was measured as having a score of 2 or higher on the shortened De Jon...

Objectives: To investigate associations between number of children and partnership with depressive symptoms among older Europeans and assess whether associations are greater in Eastern than Western countries. We further analyze whether associations are mediated by provision and receipt of emotional and financial support. Methods: Using cross-sectio...

For decades, Japanese governments have grappled with the issue how to formulate a policy response to population ageing and the rising need for long-term care. Public opinion can determine the borders to which reforms are feasible, but opinions about care for older persons have become increasingly diffuse during the second half of the twentieth cent...

Research consistently shows that children with siblings live at a greater distance from their parents than do only children. We extend this literature by assessing whether this difference varies as a function of parental need. Multinomial logistic regression analyses of German Ageing Survey data enriched with indicators at the district (Nomenclatur...

Research suggests that adult children are less likely to provide care to community-dwelling parents when beds in residential care settings are more widely available. The underlying mechanisms are not well understood. Drawing on data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) on 1,214 impaired parent–child dyads from 12 count...

Het Nederlandse langdurige-zorgbeleid is de laatste decennia flink veranderd. Er is sprake van een verschuiving naar een zorgmodel waarin de familie een grotere verantwoordelijkheid draagt dan voorheen, terwijl de verantwoordelijkheid van de overheid juist wordt beperkt. Deze ontwikkeling lijkt echter op gespannen voet te staan met hoe de Nederland...

RÉSUMÉ La prémisse de notre étude était que les croyances au sujet des soins normatives peuvent éclairer le débat actuel sur la politique de soins. Nous avons réalisé des analyses impliquant la régression de classe latente sur deux vagues de données ( n = 4 163 ) de la Netherlands Kinship Panel Study parenté pour distinguer les idéaux pour les soi...

Employers’ willingness to invest in older workers’ training Employers’ willingness to invest in older workers’ training Employers’ willingness to invest in older workers’ training can be regarded as a rational decision. Moreover, we investigate the extent to which employers’ willingness to invest is affected by two other actors: governments and the...

Summary Care ideals in the Netherlands: Shifts between 2002 and 2011 [1]Our point of departure is that normative care beliefs can inform the current care policy debate. We conduct latent class regression analyses using two waves of Netherlands Kinship Panel Study data (N=4,163) to distinguish care ideals that capture multiple dimensions of normativ...

Drawing on the work of Sassen, we assess the association between regional economic performance and the distance between parents and their employed children. Multilevel regression analyses of German Ageing Survey micro data enriched with INKAR (Indicators, Maps, and Graphics for Spatial and Urban Development) district level indicators (N = 5,577) in...

In order to contain public care expenditure, policymakers in the Netherlands have over the last decades formulated in ever more stringent ways what ought to be expected from spouses, partners, and family members with regard to care for dependent relatives. The current Dutch coalition cabinet plans to shift the principal responsibility for nonmedica...

The third age is a concept popularised by British social-historian Peter Laslett. It refers to an idyllic stage in the life course in which individuals are freed from work and family obligations, while having the means and health to pursue life goals. I argue that differences between men and women in the extent to which they provide of informal car...