School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544;
School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2021 Mar 16;118(11). doi: 10.1073/pnas.2024777118.
A 4-y college degree is increasingly the key to good jobs and, ultimately, to good lives in an ever-more meritocratic and unequal society. The bachelor's degree (BA) is increasingly dividing Americans; the one-third with a BA or more live longer and more prosperous lives, while the two-thirds without face rising mortality and declining prospects. We construct a time series, from 1990 to 2018, of a summary of each year's mortality rates and expected years lived from 25 to 75 at the fixed mortality rates of that year. Our measure excludes those over 75 who have done relatively well over the last three decades and focuses on the years when deaths rose rapidly through drug overdoses, suicides, and alcoholic liver disease and when the decline in mortality from cardiovascular disease slowed and reversed. The BA/no-BA gap in our measure widened steadily from 1990 to 2018. Beyond 2010, as those with a BA continued to see increases in our period measure of expected life, those without saw declines. This is true for the population as a whole, for men and for women, and for Black and White people. In contrast to growing education gaps, gaps between Black and White people diminished but did not vanish. By 2018, intraracial college divides were larger than interracial divides conditional on college; by our measure, those with a college diploma are more alike one another irrespective of race than they are like those of the same race who do not have a BA.
四年制大学学位日益成为在一个日益精英化和不平等的社会中获得好工作、最终过上好生活的关键。学士学位（BA）日益将美国人划分开来；拥有学士学位或以上的三分之一人口寿命更长、生活更富裕，而没有学士学位的三分之二人口则面临着死亡率上升和前景恶化的问题。我们构建了一个从 1990 年到 2018 年的时间序列，汇总了每年的死亡率和从 25 岁到 75 岁的预期寿命，死亡率固定为当年的水平。我们的衡量标准排除了过去三十年表现相对较好的 75 岁以上人群，重点关注死亡率因药物过量、自杀和酒精性肝病而迅速上升的年份，以及心血管疾病死亡率下降和逆转的年份。从 1990 年到 2018 年，我们衡量标准中的 BA/无 BA 差距稳步扩大。到 2010 年以后，随着拥有学士学位的人继续看到我们所衡量的预期寿命的增加，那些没有学士学位的人则看到了下降。这适用于整个人口、男性和女性，以及黑人和白人。与不断扩大的教育差距形成鲜明对比的是，黑人和白人之间的差距虽然缩小但并未消失。到 2018 年，种族内的大学差距大于种族间的差距，条件是有大学学历；根据我们的衡量标准，无论种族如何，那些拥有大学文凭的人彼此之间比那些没有学士学位的同种族人更为相似。
