The impact of early and adult life conditions on educational health inequality over the life course: a counterfactual decomposition of survival functions and hazard rates

Abstract

"The positive relation between education and health has been shown to be remarkably pronounced over the life course. Less is, however, known about the underlying mechanisms. Two groups of explanatory factors have been advanced: Initial life conditions affecting both education and health in early life, and health related educational returns during adulthood. We apply a counterfactual decomposition of hazard rate models to study the relative importance of these two pathways on the transition to poor health. Using data from SHARE (2006/07) and SHARELIFE (2008/09), we find that early socioeconomic conditions contribute most to the educational health differences. This is true especially for the oldest cohort. In the successive cohorts the impact of the early conditions weakens, while determinants during adulthood become also important." (author's abstract)