Education, Race, Gender, and the Compression of Morbidity

Melonie P. Heron, RAND
Mark D. Hayward, Pennsylvania State University

We examine racial and educational inequality in active (disability-free) life expectancy for men and women between 1980 and 1990. We calculate age-race-sex-education specific prevalence-based life tables using data from NCHS and the PUMS. Preliminary results show a general pattern of compression of morbidity. Within race, the more highly educated have higher active life expectancies and can expect to spend a smaller proportion of their life in a disabled state than the more poorly educated. However, while the highly educated experience a compression of morbidity over time, for some age and race groups, the poorly educated actually experience an increase over time in the proportion of life spent disabled and a decrease in active life expectancy. There is also evidence of widening gaps in health by race. Men show increasing gaps in active life expectancy over time for all educational levels, with the largest disparities among the highly educated.