Hendi Arun S
Population Research Institute and Department of Sociology, Duke University, 276 Soc/Psych Building, Box 90088, 417 Chapel Dr., Durham, NC, 27708-0088, USA.
Demography. 2017 Jun;54(3):1203-1213. doi: 10.1007/s13524-017-0574-2.
Several recent articles have reported conflicting conclusions about educational differences in life expectancy, and this is partly due to the use of unreliable data subject to a numerator-denominator bias previously reported as ranging from 20 % to 40 %. This article presents estimates of life expectancy and lifespan variation by education in the United States using more reliable data from the National Health Interview Survey. Contrary to prior conclusions in the literature, I find that life expectancy increased or stagnated since 1990 among all education-race-sex groups except for non-Hispanic white women with less than a high school education; there has been a robust increase in life expectancy among white high school graduates and a smaller increase among black female high school graduates; lifespan variation did not increase appreciably among high school graduates; and lifespan variation plays a very limited role in explaining educational gradients in mortality. I also discuss the key role that educational expansion may play in driving future changes in mortality gradients. Because of shifting education distributions, within an education-specific synthetic cohort, older age groups are less negatively selected than younger age groups. We could thus expect a greater concentration of mortality at younger ages among people with a high school education or less, which would be reflected in increasing lifespan variability for this group. Future studies of educational gradients in mortality should use more reliable data and should be mindful of the effects of shifting education distributions.
最近的几篇文章报道了关于预期寿命教育差异的相互矛盾的结论，部分原因是使用了不可靠的数据，这些数据存在之前报道的20%至40%的分子分母偏差。本文使用来自美国国家健康访谈调查的更可靠数据，呈现了美国按教育程度划分的预期寿命和寿命差异估计。与文献中的先前结论相反，我发现自1990年以来，除了高中以下学历的非西班牙裔白人女性外，所有教育程度-种族-性别人群的预期寿命都有所增加或停滞不前；白人高中毕业生的预期寿命有强劲增长，黑人女性高中毕业生的增长幅度较小；高中毕业生的寿命差异没有明显增加；寿命差异在解释死亡率的教育梯度方面作用非常有限。我还讨论了教育扩张在推动未来死亡率梯度变化中可能发挥的关键作用。由于教育分布的变化，在特定教育程度的合成队列中，老年人群体的负面选择比年轻人群体少。因此，我们可以预期，高中及以下学历人群中，死亡率在年轻时的集中程度会更高，这将反映在该群体寿命变异性的增加上。未来关于死亡率教育梯度的研究应使用更可靠的数据，并应注意教育分布变化的影响。
