This study focuses on changes in the health status of people aged 65 and over living in Spain. The purpose of this research is to analyse how individual-level socioeconomic characteristics, living arrangement and household conditions have an impact on health status transitions of elderly. To this end, the aging context is explored through the health indicator related to the functional limitation “Global Activity Limitation Index” (GALI). Data come from the EU-SILC (EU Statistics on Income and Living conditions) panel survey as it represents a powerful instrument to analysis socioeconomic status in European countries at household and individual level in combination with different health statuses, including death. A Multi-State Model with recovery is applied to estimate transition probabilities among three different health states: Healthy, Not healthy and Death. There are six possible transitions from one state to another. The multistate approach allows us to estimate probabilities of change between health states and the expected occupation time in each state which is expressed in a similar approach as the life expectancy at a specified age but regarding health states.

Research questions will address whether living arrangement characteristics (as household size and residential arrangements) and household condition (ability to make ends meet, ability to keep home adequately warm, capacity to face unexpected finances) have an effect on health status transitions. We control for age, sex and educational attainment. Possible policy implications of our findings on social disparities in health among people aged 65 years and over will be discussed.