Cohort Compositional Effects on the Mortality-Education Gap: A Structural Analysis

• In Event: 546 - Section on Sociology of Population Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 07. Education and Health

Abstract

The gap between the mortality rates for those with less than a high school education and those with a high school education or more in the United States has grown over the past few decades. This trend is especially marked for white women. Using an age-period cohort-characteristic (APCC) model, we examine the effects of four characteristics on this education-mortality gap: wages measured at age 25-29, labor force participation at age 25-29, marriage at age 25-29, and smoking behavior measured at age 25-29. Of these factors only relative wages seems to be important. The most important cohort factor, however, is a compositional effect that is based on the proportion of the population with a high school education or greater. As this proportion increases for cohorts those without a high school education are increasingly more susceptible to mortality. We analyze results across three broad categories of mortality: total mortality rates, external mortality rates, and non-external mortality rates. The major findings are similar across all three of these categories. The APCC approach controls for age and period effects in a highly flexible manner.

Authors

• Jean Stockard, University of Oregon

• Robert M. O'Brien, University of Oregon