Modest gains in life expectancy among white high school-educated Americans obscure the fact that, in contrast to their more highly educated peers, significant numbers are increasingly dying young, reveals research from LSE.
The research, published in the journal Demography, looked at the distribution of age of death by educational attainment. It found that college-educated Americans not only live longer than their less educated counterparts, on average, but their deaths tend to be concentrated at particularly old ages. By contrast, high school-educated Americans – particularly whites – have experienced increasing variability in age at death since 1990 due to a rise in premature deaths.
Dr Isaac Sasson, Fellow in Population Health at LSE and author of the research, explained: “Life expectancy only tells part of the story. You can have two different populations with the same average age of death but with very different ‘spreads’ around that average, which means lesser or greater uncertainty for the individuals involved.
“If you are a man who didn’t graduate from High School you are almost as likely to die at age 60 as you are at age 85, whereas if you are college-educated women, for example, your most likely age at death is around 90 – and importantly you can plan for that.”
The research found that for the lowest educated white Americans, who did not graduate High School, life expectancy has declined by 3.1 years for women and 0.6 years for men since 1990. Women in this group experienced increasing variability in age of death, whereas for men – who already experienced a high level of variability – this did not change significantly.
Among black Americans of all educational attainment groups, adult life expectancy increased and the variability in their ages of death generally plateaued or declined. However they consistently lagged behind whites of the same gender and education on both measures.
Dr Sasson said: “Educational attainment is becoming a better predictor of length of life than race and gender in America. This raises the question of how far should policymakers be thinking about investing in education as health policy.”
This is the first study to reveal trends in both life expectancy and variation in lifespan by educational attainment over two decades, for major race groups and between genders in the United States. Dr Sasson used data from the National Vital Statistics System from 1990 to 2010 for his analysis.
More on this research can be seen on the LSE United States Politics and Policy blog
Notes to editors
Trends in Life Expectancy and Lifespan Variation by Educational Attainment: United States, 1990-201 by Isaac Sasson
Image credit: "IMG47" (CC BY 2.0) by US Department of Education
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