Trends in Life Expectancy and Lifespan Variation by Educational Attainment: United States, 1990–2010

Isaac Sasson

doi:10.1007/s13524-015-0453-7

Abstract

The educational gradient in life expectancy is well documented in the United States and in other low-mortality countries. Highly educated Americans, on average, live longer than their low-educated counterparts, who have recently seen declines in adult life expectancy. However, limiting the discussion on lifespan inequality to mean differences alone overlooks other dimensions of inequality and particularly disparities in lifespan variation. The latter represents a unique form of inequality, with higher variation translating into greater uncertainty in the time of death from an individual standpoint, and higher group heterogeneity from a population perspective. Using data from the National Vital Statistics System from 1990 to 2010, this is the first study to document trends in both life expectancy and S25—the standard deviation of age at death above 25—by educational attainment. Among low-educated whites, adult life expectancy declined by 3.1 years for women and by 0.6 years for men. At the same time, S25 increased by about 1.5 years among high school–educated whites of both genders, becoming an increasingly important component of total lifespan inequality. By contrast, college-educated whites benefited from rising life expectancy and record low variation in age at death, consistent with the shifting mortality scenario. Among blacks, adult life expectancy increased, and S25 plateaued or declined in nearly all educational attainment groups, although blacks generally lagged behind whites of the same gender on both measures. Documenting trends in lifespan variation can therefore improve our understanding of lifespan inequality and point to diverging trajectories in adult mortality across socioeconomic strata.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13524-015-0453-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Highlights

Socioeconomic disparities in health and mortality are perhaps the most fundamental of social inequalities
This study finds that between 1990 and 2010, variation in age at death increased among high school–educated Americans in spite of modest gains in life expectancy; at the same time, those with at least some college education have seen tremendous improvements in life expectancy coupled with a steady, record-low variation in age at death
Educational disparities in U.S adult mortality have been widening for several decades, with the college-educated faring better than any other educational attainment group (Meara et al 2008; Montez et al 2011; Preston and Elo 1995)

Summary

Introduction

Socioeconomic disparities in health and mortality are perhaps the most fundamental of social inequalities. More troubling is that educational differences in life expectancy have widened dramatically since the 1980s, across all major race and gender groups, and that low-educated white Americans are seeing absolute declines in longevity (Meara et al 2008; Montez et al 2011; Olshansky et al 2012). Those with less than a high school diploma exhibit higher lifespan variability and can expect greater uncertainty in their time of death (Brown et al 2012; Edwards and Tuljapurkar 2005). The scenarios most often considered for the population as a whole are mortality compression (Fries 1980, 1983) and translation (Bongaarts 2005; Bongaarts and Feeney 2003; CanudasRomo 2008). (I define mortality compression and translation in the upcoming section Future Mortality Scenarios.) Yet, neither of those scenarios has been evaluated for different socioeconomic strata in the United States, over time

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