Comparative Approach to SES Gradient: Aging &Selection

University Of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia PA

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Abstract

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The general goal of this project is to investigate the mechanisms linking education to health transitions, morbidity processes and mortality outcomes at advanced ages. In particular, we investigate the mechanisms underlying the observed gradual decline in the effect of education at older ages comparing this effect in the very different institutional and socioeconomic contexts of the U.S. and Mexico. We emphasize the role of health-related selection processes, the effects of early life events, parental background, and intergenerational transmissions of human capital on health status in later life, and especially at old age. The specific aims of the project are to: develop comparative indicators of health status for older people based in part on biomarkers; develop a cross-national typology of education that goes beyond simple counts of years of schooling; map how the magnitude of the relationship between education and health outcomes changes with age; consider the role of differential selection on the convergence &morbidity and mortality trajectories; and, assess how differences in education imprint on the aging process, its disease burden and disability in the U.S. and Mexico.