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Little research attention has been given to examining inequalities in the health of elderly women and men, in spite of their high use of health services and the importance of health to maintaining independence in later life. This paper uses data from the British General Household Survey to analyse the variation in health of elderly women and men by class and material circumstances. Two measures of health are used; self-assessed health and functional disability. Elderly women assess their own health less positively than men, and are seriously disadvantaged compared to men in terms of functional disability.

Class based on the individual's own previous main occupation is strongly associated with the two measures of health for elderly women and men at all ages. For elderly women, an ‘individualistic’ approach, using the women's own last occupation, is compared with the ‘conventional’ approach of measuring class …