"Measuring Life Expectancy Gradients Following Eras of Educational Expansion"
Abstract: One of the fiercest debates among social demographers is whether inequality in life expectancy has increased over the past several decades. Researchers have variously concluded that educational differences in life expectancy have widened, narrowed, or remained constant over time. While part of the explanation for these conflicting findings has to do with data quality, a potentially larger source of variation is the tremendous shift in the education distribution following decades of educational expansion. In this study, I introduce new, simple methods to measure life expectancy gradients that take into account changes in the education distribution. Using high-quality data from Finland and the U.S., I identify a previously unknown empirical regularity: a smooth, diminishing returns relationship between relative education and mortality. I find that while educational inequality in life expectancy has increased over time, that increase is not as large or as uniform as previous research has suggested.
