Educational expansion and inequalities in mortality—A fixed-effects analysis using longitudinal data from 18 European populations

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this paper is to empirically evaluate whether widening educational inequalities in mortality are related to the substantive shifts that have occurred in the educational distribution. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Data on education and mortality from 18 European populations across several decades were collected and harmonized as part of the Demetriq project. Using a fixed-effects approach to account for time trends and national variation in mortality, we formally test whether the magnitude of relative inequalities in mortality by education is associated with the gender and age-group specific proportion of high and low educated respectively. RESULTS: The results suggest that in populations with larger proportions of high educated and smaller proportions of low educated, the excess mortality among intermediate and low educated is larger, all other things being equal. CONCLUSION: We conclude that the widening educational inequalities in mortality being observed in recent decades may in part be attributed to educational expansion.