Older People in Germany During the COVID-19 Pandemic:The Least, the More, and the Most Affected.

ABSTRACT

Older people have been identified as a particularly vulnerable group during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the question of how older people actually fared during the COVID-19 pandemic has only been sporadically addressed. This article aims to partly fill this gap by classifying subgroups of older people using Latent Class Analysis. Indicators used are risk perception, safety behavior, and well-being. To predict subgroup membership, age, gender, living arrangement, children, chronic illness, conflict, socioeconomic status, and migration history are controlled for. The data analyzed stem from a phone survey among 491 older people (75-100 years) in Germany conducted in September/October 2020. Results show that three subgroups of older people - the least, the more and the most affected - can be formed based on their risk perception, safety behavior, and well-being, indicating the usefulness of these three constructs for identifying and studying older people particularly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and the measures taken to contain it. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12062-021-09352-4.