ABSTRACT
Ethnic inequalities in health, well-being, and life expectancy are apparent throughout the early to mid-life course in the United Kingdom (UK), as elsewhere. Much less is known about the health, well-being, and social circumstances of older ethnic minority people. As ethnic minority people approach later life, the interplay of accumulated social and economic disadvantage, including experiences of racial discrimination, will undoubtedly affect their health, possibly leading to increased ethnic inequalities in health and well-being. In this chapter, we aim to examine this by taking a life course approach to conceptualising and understanding ethnic inequalities in later life, using the UK as an example of a national context. We focus on three key principles of life course theory: historical time, accumulation of disadvantage, and linked lives. We examine the 2001 and 2011 censuses to show how time and period interplay with the wider historical context to pattern ethnic health inequalities in later life.
