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The contribution of causes of death to the educational differentials in mortality in Brazil

Rafaella de Oliveira Carnevali, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG)
Cassio M. Turra, Demography Department, Cedeplar, UFMG
Mirian Ribeiro, Centro de Desenvolvimento e Planejamento Regional (CEDEPLAR) / Universidade Federa de Minas Gerais

In most developing countries the debate on educational differentials in mortality is scarce due to data quality-related issues. Brazil is a good representative of this group since its mortality data is affected by persistent errors in age reporting as well as in the information related to the educational attainment of the deceased. Our main goal with this paper was to investigate educational differences in mortality between adults in Brazil, bringing the perspective of causes of death through a decomposition method. Our results show that the educational gradient in longevity regardless of sex is persistent among adults, however, for men, this differential was more significant for cardiovascular diseases while for women was for neoplasms. We also found that the differential for all causes was more intense between those that completed primary education and those who haven’t, than when considering other transitions within the education system.

Keywords: Mortality, Inequality, Decomposition analysis/methods

See extended abstract.

  Presented in Session P15.