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E
UR
A
MERICA
Vol. 47, No. 2
(
June 2017
)
,
143-175
©
Institute of European and American Studies, Academia Sinica
http://euramerica.orgAdvanced Education and Mortality
Compression in the United States
Chi-Tsun Chiu
Institute of European and American Studies, Academia Sinica
No. 128, Sec. 2, Academia Rd., Taipei 11529, Taiwan
E-mail:
ctchiu@gate.sinica.edu.twAbstract
Studies regarding education as a “fundamental cause” of
health disparities have shown that people who are more-
educated enjoy longer life expectancy and a compression of
mortality compared with their less-educated counterparts.
Previous studies have shown the significance of education for
mortality compression, but may have overlooked
heterogeneity and the importance of education-mortality
compression association with postsecondary schooling. This
study aims to examine whether advanced education has
become increasingly important in determining the life chances
of individuals in the United States using the Health and
Retirement Study. The results not only show the educational
gradients of longevity along with mortality compression, but
also imply that advanced education has become increasingly
important in determine life chances in the United States.
Key Words:
Education, mortality compression, modal age of
death, standard deviation above the mode
Received August 17, 2016; accepted March 22, 2017; last revised March 24, 2017
Proofreaders: Wenchi Chang, Liang-Wei Huang
,
TsaiYing Lu