Longitudinal change in occupational engagement configurations in later life: evidence from SHARE France.

Authors

Muriel Sahraoui, Emmanuelle Cambois, Florence Canouï-Poitrine, Marie Laurent, Meoïn Hagege

Published in

SSM - population health. Volume 36. Pages 101990. Epub Oct 24, 2026.

Abstract

Later-life participation is often studied in terms of maintenance or decline of individual activities, leaving less clear whether broader configurations of everyday engagement shift uniformly towards more home-centred patterns or undergo more differentiated forms of change. We analysed French data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), waves 5-9, to identify configurations of reported activities among adults aged ≥ 50 years and examine their longitudinal transitions. Baseline profiles were derived at wave 5 (N = 4505) using Partitioning Around Medoids with Gower distance and assigned at waves 6-9 using fixed medoids. Transition matrices, sequence indicators, GEE logistic models and multinomial models described trajectories and associations with concurrent health and life-course changes. Five profiles were identified: Home-centred (73.2%), Family-oriented (9.8%), Community (3.8%), Diversified (7.6%) and Social engagement (5.6%). Home-centred engagement was the most stable profile and the most frequent transition destination. Increased ADL and IADL limitations were associated with higher probabilities of Home-centred engagement. In contrast, retirement was associated with lower Home-centred and higher Community and Diversified engagement, while household-size changes were associated with several profile differences. Later-life participation therefore did not show a uniform shift towards more home-centred engagement. Instead, different functional and life-course changes were concurrently associated with different multidomain engagement configurations. Home-centred engagement should not be interpreted as evidence of reduced engagement, as the available measures cannot distinguish continuity, adaptation, preference or constraint.

PMID:
42965177
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 01 Nov 2026.

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