Gender, Education, and Physical Health among Adults in Central Mexico

Abstract

In this paper, we apply an intersectional perspective and test whether resource substitution, which predicts that education will be more strongly related to the health of women than men, is operating among adults included in the 2014 Study of Health and Migration in Mexico (SHMM). Findings revealed modest and somewhat contradictory evidence regarding the potential role of resource substitution. For Mexican women, rates of elevated waist circumference are very high regardless of education level, but for hypertension, there is a strong, negative association with education even after adjustment for controls. Different patterns emerge for Mexican men as regression models show that the probability of both elevated waist circumference and hypertension is higher among the more educated. Overall, results suggest that education is only health protective for women’s risk of hypertension. In sum, this work highlights gender specificity in the relationship between education and health in Mexico, and that this relationship varies by health outcome.