Cohort and Life Course Patterns in the Education-Health Relationship: A Hierarchical Approach

Scott M. Lynch, Princeton University

The relationship between education and health is well-established. Recent medical sociological research has examined whether the relationship is dynamic across age, while recent demographic research has examined whether the relationship varies across cohorts. In this study, I unite these literatures by considering that the influence of education on life course health trajectories is structured by birth cohort. At the cohort level, change in formal education makes cohort differences in the effect of education probable. At the life course level, the effect of education likely varies across age, because the mediators of the education-health relationship vary in their relevance to health over the life course. In this research, I develop a hierarchical model that simultaneously considers cohort and life course patterns, using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Preliminary findings suggest that the effect of education strengthens across age, and that this pattern is becoming stronger across cohorts.