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Reversals in past long term trends in educational inequalities in life expectancy across Europe.

Jesús-Daniel Zazueta Borboa, Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI)
Pekka Martikainen, University of Helsinki
Jose Manuel Aburto, University of Oxford
Riina Peltonen, Population Research Unit
Nicolás Zengarini, Epidemiology Unit, ASL TO3, Piedmont Region, Grugliasco(Turin)
Anton E Kunst, Department of Public Health, Amsterdam UMC, University of Amsterdam
Fanny Janssen, Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI) and University of Groningen

Across Europe, socio-economic inequalities in mortality are large, and have generally increased in recent decades. To better understand what has been driving these past trends, it is important to identify the different phases in these past trends and their underlying drivers. Our objective is, to identify phases and potential reversals in the past long-term trends in educational inequality in remaining life expectancy at age 30 (EIe30), and to assess the contribution of different socio-economic groups at different ages. We studied this for Finland and Italy (Turin), and will later add England & Wales. We used yearly mortality data by educational level (low, middle, high) from 1970 onwards, applying segmented regression and a novel demographic decomposition technique. Among Finnish males, the increase in EIe30 turned into a decline around 2008 driven by a regained mortality declines among the lower educated aged below 50, while among females continue increasing. Among Italian males EIe30 slowdown in 1999, and among females increased strongly in 2003 and later decline in 2010. The observed important recent discontinuations of strong increases in EIe30, thus, seem particularly driven by regained mortality declines among the low educated at young ages, which might be related to trends in health behaviors.

Keywords: Mortality, Inequality, Applied demography

See paper.

  Presented in Session 122. Socioeconomic Inequality, Differentials and Mortality