Gender, Education and Mortality across Age: Does Schooling Have the Same Effect on Mortality for Men and Women?

Anna Zajacova, Princeton University

This paper explores the effect of education on mortality by sex. Existing research suggests that the association between education and health may be weaker for women, because comparable levels of schooling bring higher returns to men in terms of mediators thought to explain the education-health relationship (e.g. income, prestige). I use NHANES panel data spanning 20 years, with a baseline sample of 14,407 respondents aged 25-75. Discrete time logit models of mortality are used to model interaction effects of sex and education. We also allow the effects to vary across age in a three-way interaction model. The main finding is the absence of statistically significant difference in the impact of education on mortality for men and women in all models. I found that despite possible differential returns to education by gender, each additional year of schooling brings comparable benefits in terms of decreased mortality to men and women.