Educational inequalities in longevity in 18 OECD countries

Abstract This paper assesses inequality in longevity across education and gender groups in 23 OECD countries around 2011. Data on mortality rates by age, gender, educational attainment, and, for 17 countries, cause of death were collected from national sources, with similar treatment applied to all countries in order to derive comparable measures of longevity at age 25 and 65 by gender and education. These estimates show that, on average, the gap in life expectancy between high and low-educated people is 7.6 years for men and 4.8 years for women at age 25 years, and 3.6 years for men and 2.6 years for women at age 65. At the age of 25, the gap in life expectancy between high and low-educated people varies between 4.1 years (in Canada) and 13.9 years (in Hungary) for men, and between 2.5 years (in Italy) and 8.3 years (in Latvia) for women; in the United States, the gap is 10.0 years for men and 7.0 years for women. Cardiovascular diseases are the first cause of death for all gender and education groups after age 65 years, and the first cause of mortality inequality between the high and low-education elderly.