title: Educational attainment and adult mortality in the United States: a systematic analysis of functional form.
abstract: A vast literature has documented the inverse association between educational attainment and U.S. adult mortality risk but given little attention to identifying the optimal functional form of the association. A theoretical explanation of the association hinges on our ability to describe it empirically. Using the 1979-1998 National Longitudinal Mortality Study for non-Hispanic white and black adults aged 25-100 years during the mortality follow-up period (N = 1,008,215), we evaluated 13 functional forms across race-gender-age subgroups to determine which form(s) best captured the association. Results revealed that the preferred functional form includes a linear decline in mortality risk from 0 to 11 years of education, followed by a step-change reduction in mortality risk upon attainment of a high school diploma, at which point mortality risk resumes a linear decline but with a steeper slope than that prior to a high school diploma. The findings provide important clues for theoretical development of explanatory mechanisms: an explanation for the selected functional form may require integrating a credentialist perspective to explain the step-change reduction in mortality risk upon attainment of a high school diploma, with a human capital perspective to explain the linear declines before and after a high school diploma.
authors.affiliation: Harvard Center for Population & Development Studies, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. jkmontez@hsph.harvard.edu
authors.forename: Jennifer Karas
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Montez
authors.forename: Robert A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Hummer
authors.forename: Mark D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Hayward
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D044383:Black People / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003710:Demography; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009026:Mortality; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012307:Risk Factors; D014481:United States; D044465:White People / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D001741:Black or African American