Decomposition of gender differences in cognitive functioning: National Survey of the Japanese elderly

BMC Geriatrics

Table 1 Descriptive statistics

	Men (n=1562)		Women (n=2019)		P-value^b
	Mean/Proportion	SD^a	Mean/Proportion	SD	P-value^b
Memory mistakes [t=baseline]	0.62	0.93	0.86	1.03	< 0.001
Memory mistakes [t+ 1]	0.94	1.24	1.11	1.26	< 0.001
Memory mistakes [t+ 1]-[t]	0.58	0.99	0.58	0.98	0.916
Mild decline [t+ 1]	9.9%		12.8%		< 0.01
Moderate decline [t+ 1]	2.0%		2.0%		0.970
Age	68.02	6.53	68.66	6.77	< 0.001
Years of education	9.80	2.82	8.79	2.32	< 0.001
Current worker	48.7%		25.8%		< 0.001
Longest occupation
Professional	23.0%		5.4%		< 0.001
Clerical	16.4%		26.4%
Manual	40.3%		17.1%
Agriculture/forestry/fishery	18.2%		10.8%
Domestic worker	2.0%		40.2%
Single	9.7%		47.1%		< 0.001
Home ownership	89.6%		86.4%		< 0.01
Group activity	68.6%		63.9%		< 0.01
Current smoker	45.5%		7.2%		< 0.001
Alcohol consumption	64.9%		7.2%		< 0.001
Exercise	52.7%		48.0%		< 0.01
Hearing impairment	6.6%		4.2		< 0.001
Diabetes	7.2%		4.4%		< 0.001
Hypertension	25.7%		30.8%		< 0.001
Stroke	3.9%		3.0%		0.125
Entry wave
Wave1	45.9%		45.5%
Wave2	8.7%		8.0%
Wave4	20.8%		18.6%
Wave5	24.6%		27.8%

^aSD standard deviation
^bWelch’s method to test the difference of averages under the hypothesis of heteroskedasticity. Chi-square test was used for assessing differences of categorical variables between men and women

ISSN: 1471-2318