Institute of Health Economics and Management, University of Lausanne, Switzerland.
Demography. 2011 Aug;48(3):915-30. doi: 10.1007/s13524-011-0048-x.
This study explores the role of early-life education for differences in cognitive functioning between men and women aged 60 and older from seven major urban areas in Latin America and the Caribbean. After documenting statistically significant differences in cognitive functioning between men and women for six of the seven study sites, I assess the extent to which these differences can be explained by prevailing male-female differences in education. I decompose predicted male-female differences in cognitive functioning based on various statistical models for later-life cognition and find robust evidence that male-female differences in education are a major driving force behind cognitive functioning differences between older men and women. This study therefore suggests that early-life differences in educational attainment between boys and girls during childhood have a lasting impact on gender inequity in cognitive functioning at older ages. Increases in educational attainment and the closing of the gender gap in education in many countries in Latin America and the Caribbean may thus result in both higher levels and a more gender-equitable distribution of later-life cognition among the future elderly in those countries.
本研究探讨了 60 岁及以上的来自拉丁美洲和加勒比地区七个主要城市的男性和女性之间认知功能差异的早期教育作用。在记录了六个研究点的男性和女性之间在认知功能上存在统计学显著差异后，我评估了这些差异在多大程度上可以通过教育方面普遍存在的男女差异来解释。我根据各种关于晚年认知的统计模型对预测的男性和女性在认知功能上的差异进行了分解，结果发现有强有力的证据表明，教育方面的男女差异是导致老年男性和女性之间认知功能差异的主要原因。因此，本研究表明，儿童时期男女之间在受教育程度上的早期差异对老年时期认知功能方面的性别不平等产生持久影响。在拉丁美洲和加勒比地区的许多国家，教育程度的提高和教育性别差距的缩小可能会导致未来老年人口在认知功能方面的水平提高和性别更平等的分布。
