We use harmonized household panel data from Europe and the US and a three-state survival model to provide comparable measurements of education and gender inequalities in total, healthy, and unhealthy life expectancies at age 50. Common across countries, the education advantage in total life expectancy is larger for males but the education advantage in (fewer) unhealthy years is larger for females. Counterfactual decompositions show that these results arise because the education advantage in conditional survival rates is relatively more important for males, while the education advantage in better health transitions is relatively more important for females. Across countries, the US stands out with the largest education gradient in healthy life expectancy.

Banco de España Madrid Spain

CEMFI Madrid Spain

CEPR London UK

CERGE EI Prague Czech Republic

EUI Depatment of Economics Fiesole FI Italy

Zobrazit více v PubMed

Alvaredo, F. , Chancel, L. , Piketty, T. , Saez, E. , & Zucman, G. (2018). World inequality report. World Inequality Lab.

Amengual, D. , Bueren, J. , & Crego, J. (2020). Endogenous health groups and heterogeneous dynamics of the elderly. Mimeo.

Ameriks, J. , Briggs, J. S. , Caplin, A. , Shapiro, M. D. , & Tonetti, C. (2020). “Long-term care utility and late in life saving”. Journal of Political Economy, 128(6), 2375-2475.

Avendano, M. , Kok, R. , Glymour, M. , Berkman, L. , Kawachi, I. , Kunst, A. , & Mackenbach, J. (2011). “Do Americans have higher mortality than Europeans at all levels of the education distribution?: A comparison of the United States and 14 European countries,” In international differences in mortality at older ages: dimensions and sources , E. M. Crimmins , S. H. Preston & B. Cohen (Eds.), National Academies Press, chap. 11.

Baicker, K. , Taubman, S. L. , Allen, H. L. , Bernstein, M. , Gruber, J. H. , Newhouse, J. P. , Schneider, E. C. , Wright, B. J. , Zaslavsky, A. M. , & Finkelstein, A. N. (2013). The Oregon experiment - effects of Medicaid on clinical outcomes. New England Journal of Medicine, 368, 1713-1722.

Blundell, R. , French, E. , & Tetlow, G. (2016). Retirement incentives and labor supply in Handbook of the Economics of population aging, J. Piggott & A. Woodland (Eds.), North Holland, chap. 8, 457-566.

Braun, R. A. , Kopecky, K. A. , & Koreshkova, T. (2019). Old, frail, and uninsured: Accounting for Features of the U.S. Long-Term care insurance market. Ecta, 87, 981-1019.

Brown, J. (2002). “Differential mortality and the value of individual account retirement annuities,” in The distributional aspects of social security and social security reform, M. Feldstein & J. B. Liebman (Eds.), University of Chicago Press, chap. 10.

Bueren, J. (2017). Long-term care needs: Implication for savings. Welfare and Public Policy,” Mimeo.

Case, A. , & Deaton, A. (2017). “Mortality and morbidity in the 21st century,” Brooking Papers on Economic Activity. 2017;397-476.

Chan, K. S. , Kasper, J. D. , Brandt, J. , & Pezzin, L. E. (2012). Measurement equivalence in ADL and IADL difficulty across international surveys of aging: Findings from the HRS, SHARE, and ELSA. Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 67B, 121-132.

Crimmins, E. M. , & Cambois, E. (2003). “Social inequalities in health expectancy,” in Determining Health Expectancies, J.-M. Robine , C. Jagger , C. D. Mathers , E. M. Crimmins & R. M. Suzman (Eds.), John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, chap. 5, 111-125.

Currie, J. , & Schwandt, H. (2016). Mortality inequality: The good news from a county-level approach. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 30, 29-52.

Cutler, D. M. , Ghosh, K. , & Landrum, M. B. (2013). “Evidence for significant compression of morbidity in the elderly U.S. Population,” NBER working paper 19268.

Cutler, D. M. , & Lleras-Muney, A. (2010). Understanding differences in health behaviors by education. Journal of Health Economics, 29, 1-28.

de Gelder, R. , Menvielle, G. , Costa, G. , Kovács, K. , Martikainen, P. , Strand, B. H. , & Mackenbach, J. P. (2017). Long-term trends of inequalities in mortality in 6 European countries. The Internet Journal of Public Health, 62, 127-141.

De Nardi, M. , French, E. , & Jones, J. B. (2016). Medicaid insurance in old age. The American Economic Review, 106, 3480-3520.

De Nardi, M. , Pashchenko, S. , & Porapakkarm, P. (2017). “The Lifetime Costs of Bad Health,” NBER Working Paper 23963.

Dwyera, D. S. , & Mitchell, O. S. (1999). Health problems as determinants of retirement: Are self-rated measures endogenous? Journal of Health Economics, 18, 173-193.

Fries, J. F. (1980). Aging, natural death, and the compression of morbidity. New England Journal of Medicine, 303, 130-135.

Fries, J. F. , Bruce, B. , & Chakravarty, E. (2011). Compression of morbidity 1980-2011: A focused review of paradigms and progress. Journal of Aging Research. 2011;261702.

Fuster, L. , Imrohoroglu, A. , & Imrohoroglu, S. (2003). A welfare analysis of social security in a dynastic framework*. International Economic Review, 44, 1247-1274.

Gruenberg, E. M. (1977). The failures of success. Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly - Health & Society, 55, 3-24.

Katz, S. , Ford, A. B. , Moskowitz, R. W. , Jackson, B. A. , & Jaffe, M. W. (1963). Studies of illness in the aged. JAMA, 185, 914-919.

Laferrère, A. , den Heede, A. V. , den Bosch, K. V. , & Geerts, J. (2013). “Entry into institutional care: Predictors and alternatives,” in Active Ageing and Solidarity Between Generations in Europe, A. BorschSupan , M. Brandt , H. Litwin & G. Weber (Eds.), De Gruyter, chap. 22, 253-264.

Lakdawalla, D. , Goldman, D. P. , Bhattacharya, J. , Hurd, M. D. , Joyce, G. F. , & Panis, C. W. A. (2003). Forecasting the nursing home population. Medical Care, 41, 8-20.

Lorber, J. , & Moore, L. J. (2002). Gender and the social construction of illness. Altamira Press.

Mackenbach, J. P. (2017). Nordic paradox, southern Miracle, eastern disaster: Persistence of inequalities in mortality in Europe. The European Journal of Public Health, 27(suppl_4):14-17.

Mackenbach, J. P. , Kulhánová, I. , Bopp, M. , Deboosere, P. , Eikemo, T. A. , Hoffmann, R. , Kulik, M. C. , Leinsalu, M. , Martikainen, P. , Menvielle, G. , Regidor, E. , Wojtyniak, B. , Östergren, O. , & Lundberg, O. (2015). Variations in the relation between education and cause-specific mortality in 19 European populations: A test of the "fundamental causes" theory of social inequalities in health. Social Science & Medicine, 127, 51-62.

Mackenbach, J. P. , Kulhánová, I. , Menvielle, G. , Bopp, M. , Borrell, C. , Costa, G. , Deboosere, P. , Esnaola, S. , Kalediene, R. , Kovacs, K. , Leinsalu, M. , Martikainen, P. , Regidor, E. , Rodriguez-Sanz, M. , Strand, B. H. , Hoffmann, R. , Eikemo, T. A. , Östergren, O. , & Lundberg, O. (2015). Trends in inequalities in premature mortality: A study of 3.2 million deaths in 13 European countries. Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, 69, 207-217.

Mackenbach, J. P. , Stirbu, I. , Roskam, A.-J. R. , Schaap, M. M. , Menvielle, G. , Leinsalu, M. , & Kunst, A. E. (2008). Socioeconomic inequalities in health in 22 European countries. New England Journal of Medicine, 358, 2468-2481.

Majer, I. M. , Nusselder, W. J. , Mackenbach, J. P. , & Kunst, A. E. (2010). Socioeconomic inequalities in life and health expectancies around official retirement age in 10 Western-European countries. Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, 65, 972-979.

Mäki, N. , Martikainen, P. , Eikemo, T. , Menvielle, G. , Lundberg, O. , Östergren, O. , Jasilionis, D. , & Mackenbach, J. P. (2013). Educational differences in disability-free life expectancy: A comparative study of long-standing activity limitation in eight European countries. Social Science & Medicine, 94, 1-8.

Meara, E. R. , Richards, S. , & Cutler, D. M. (2008). The gap gets bigger: Changes in mortality and life expectancy, by education, 1981-2000. Health Affairs, 27, 350-360.

Montez, J. K. , Hummer, R. A. , Hayward, M. D. , Woo, H. , & Rogers, R. G. (2011). Trends in the educational gradient of U.S. Adult mortality from 1986 through 2006 by race, gender, and age group. Research on Aging, 33, 145-171.

Pijoan-Mas, J. , & Ríos-Rull, J.-V. (2014). Heterogeneity in expected longevities. Demography, 51, 2075-2102.

Solé-Auró, A. , Michaud, P.-C. , Hurd, M. , & Crimmins, E. (2015). Disease incidence and mortality among older Americans and Europeans. Demography, 52, 593-611.