Differences in life expectancy by education and occupation in Italy, 1980–94: Indirect estimates from maternal and paternal orphanhood

Abstract

In the present study, we use the modified orphanhood method to analyse mortality differences by socio-economic status in Italy. This technique permits the indirect estimation of adult mortality from survey-based information on parents' survival in developed populations and helps to overcome several limitations of conventional studies on mortality differences by social class. We estimate a time series of life tables by education and occupation and analyse the differences in life expectancy by socio-economic status along with their changes between 1980-84, 1985-89, and 1990-94. Whereas mortality differences between the highest social class and the other socio-economic status groups increased among men, they decreased among women. We speculate about the reasons for these sex-specific trends and evaluate the application of indirect estimation techniques to the populations of developed countries.

Biases in health expectancies due to educational differences in survey participation of older Europeans: It’s worth weighting for

“…Unfortunately, Eurostat does not provide life expectancy by education for Spain, thereby preventing a comparison. [16] found similar results for Italian women during the 1990s, although not for men. The evidence suggests that the association between education and health might be weaker in both countries than in other European countries.…”

“…While the positive relationship between socio-economic advantages and health is found throughout Europe, the magnitude of that correlation varies by gender and country. First, the education gradient is larger for men than for women in life expectancy [16] as well as in HEX [17]. Second, in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, highly educated individuals are much healthier than low-educated individuals; whereas the difference is small in, for example, Denmark [18].…”

Longevity and Lifespan Variation by Educational Attainment in Spain: 1960–2015

“…It was and still is a widely used method in regions without high-quality registry data on adult mortality (United Nations 1983). An expansion of the method has also been applied to European countries with no information on SES attached to mortality data (Luy 2012;Luy et al 2011). More recently, other researchers have used the same retrospective information on the survival of parents or siblings but introduced simulation techniques into this type of indirect method (Masquelier 2013;Rentería and Turra 2009).…”

Overview on Heterogeneity in Longevity and Pension Schemes

“…In principle, the choice of a socioeconomic indicator should be based on two major criteria: (i) it should capture the strength of the increase in the life expectancy gap; and, conveniently, (ii) it should not change over time. For instance, the occupational group is an indicator that captures the increasing gap in longevity, as has been found in several countries (Burström, Johannesson, and Diderichsen 2005;Luy, Di Giulio, and Caselli 2011;Luy et al 2015). However, the use of the occupation group as an indicator is more controversial than education and income level, since individuals can have several occupations over their working life and it can produce an adverse selection effect (Pestieau and Racionero 2016).…”