Explaining the Rise in Educational Gradients in Mortality
NBER Working Paper Series, No. 15678
47 Pages Posted: 21 Nov 2016
There are 2 versions of this paper
Explaining the Rise in Educational Gradients in Mortality
Date Written: November 18, 2016
Abstract
The long-standing inverse relationship between education and mortality strengthened substantially later in the 20th century. This paper examines the reasons for this increase. We show that behavioral risk factors are not of primary importance. Smoking has declined more for the better educated, but not enough to explain the trend. Obesity has risen at similar rates across education groups, and control of blood pressure and cholesterol has increased fairly uniformly as well. Rather, our results show that the mortality returns to risk factors, and conditional on risk factors, the return to education, have grown over time.
JEL Classification: I1,I12
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation