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Has mortality risen disproportionately for the least educated?

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  • Leive, Adam A.
  • Ruhm, Christopher J.

Abstract

We examine whether the least educated population groups experienced the worst mortality trends at the beginning of the 21st century by measuring changes in mortality across education quartiles. We document sharply differing gender patterns. Among women, mortality trends improved fairly monotonically with education. Conversely, male trends for the lowest three education quartiles were often similar. For both sexes, the gap in mortality between the top 25 percent and the bottom 75 percent is growing. However, there are many groups for whom these patterns are reversed – with better experiences for the less educated – or where the differences are statistically indistinguishable.

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  • Leive, Adam A. & Ruhm, Christopher J., 2021. "Has mortality risen disproportionately for the least educated?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jhecon:v:79:y:2021:i:c:s0167629621000795
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2021.102494
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    Cited by:

    1. Paul Novosad & Charlie Rafkin & Sam Asher, 2022. "Mortality Change among Less Educated Americans," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 1-34, October.
    2. Angus Deaton, 2022. "The great divide: education, despair, and death," Business Economics, Palgrave Macmillan;National Association for Business Economics, vol. 57(4), pages 161-168, October.
    3. Michael Cauvel & Miguel Alejandro Sanchez, 2023. "Life Expectancy and the Labor Share in the U.S," Working Papers PKWP2308, Post Keynesian Economics Society (PKES).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Mortality; Death rates; Education gradients; Education quartiles;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I14 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Inequality
    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality
    • J10 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - General

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