Education and Health Across Lives and Cohorts: A Study of Cumulative Advantage in Germany

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research at DIW BerlinThis series presents research findings based either directly on data from the German SocioEconomic Panel study (SOEP) or using SOEP data as part of an internationally comparable data set (e.g. CNEF, ECHP, LIS, LWS, CHER/PACO). SOEP is a truly multidisciplinary household panel study covering a wide range of social and behavioral sciences: economics, sociology, psychology, survey methodology, econometrics and applied statistics, educational science, political science, public health, behavioral genetics, demography, geography, and sport science.The decision to publish a submission in SOEPpapers is made by a board of editors chosen by the DIW Berlin to represent the wide range of disciplines covered by SOEP. There is no external referee process and papers are either accepted or rejected without revision. Papers appear in this series as works in progress and may also appear elsewhere. They often represent preliminary studies and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be requested from the author directly.Any opinions expressed in this series are those of the author(s) and not those of DIW Berlin.Research disseminated by DIW Berlin may include views on public policy issues, but the institute itself takes no institutional policy positions. AbstractResearch from the United States has supported two hypotheses about health inequality. First, educational gaps in health widen with age -the cumulative advantage hypothesis. Second, this relationship has intensified across cohorts -the rising importance hypothesis. In this article, we estimate hierarchical linear models using 22 waves of panel data (SOEP, 1992(SOEP, -2013 to test both hypotheses in the German context, which contrasts sharply with the U.S. in the structural forces shaping health inequality. We consider individual and contextual influences on the core association between education and health, and assess gender differences in the process of cumulative advantage. Our overall results support the cumulative advantage hypothesis, as health gaps between higher and lower educated people widen with age. Further analyses reveal that this process is gender specific. Among women, educational gaps in health are small and remain stable. Among men, these gaps not only widen rapidly with age, but also increasingly across cohorts, sup...

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