Assessing the spatial scale of context effects: The example of neighbourhoods' educational composition and its relevance for individual aspirations.

The neighbourhood environment has repeatedly proven to be a relevant context for central aspects of individuals' lives, such as educational attainment. The conventional approach of measuring neighbourhood characteristics within disjunct geographical units fixed at a particular scale is less suitable for representing the characteristics of individual action spaces in everyday activities and for detecting scale-dependent relationships. We, therefore, adapted an ego-centred context approach by aggregating contextual characteristics within (approximately) circular areas around individual respondents' places of residence (ego-hoods). We also used an analytical framework that considers the quality of hierarchical context effects. This allowed us to derive conclusions about the spatial reference of micro-level mechanisms from the scale of context effects observed as a macro-micro relationship. We linked contextual indicators to individual-level data from the German Socio-Economic Panel. Comparing ego-hoods of different ranges, we confirmed the expectation of distance decay in the relevance of neighbours for individual educational aspirations.

Family matters: The contribution of households' educational and employment composition to income inequality.

The rise in inequality in most industrial countries has drawn attention to the social and economic processes underlying it. This study examines how changing educational attainment and employment patterns of women (mainly) are impacting households' income distribution, with Israel as a case study. The level of income inequality in Israel, which is one of the highest in the Western world, has risen significantly in recent decades, along with a rise in education and labor force participation, especially among women. Using counterfactual analysis of the Theil index between the years 1983 and 2008, our findings show that the share of highly educated households has soared, together with a rise in the share of fulltime dual-earner households. There has also been an increase in the share of doubly fortunate households: both highly educated and fulltime dual-earner. All these changes have contributed to the rise in income inequality. The study emphasizes the importance of the joint change in educational attainment and participation level as an important mechanism behind the rise in income inequality.

Trends in the age at reproductive transitions in the developing world: The role of education.

Girls' school participation has expanded considerably in the developing world over the last few decades, a phenomenon expected to have substantial consequences for reproductive behaviour. Using Demographic and Health Survey data from 43 countries, this paper examines trends and differentials in the mean ages at three critical life-cycle events for young women: first sexual intercourse, first marriage, and first birth. We measure the extent to which trends in the timing of these events are driven either by the changing educational composition of populations or by changes in behaviour within education groups. Mean ages have risen over time in all regions for all three events, except age at first sex in Latin America and the Caribbean. Results from a decomposition exercise indicate that increases in educational attainment, rather than trends within education groups, are primarily responsible for the overall trends. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed.

Trends in Dementia Prevalence, Incidence, and Mortality in the United States (2000-2016).

Objectives: The prevalence of dementia has declined in the United States; how this parallels to changes in incidence and mortality, and how improvements in educational attainment may have influences these trends, is not known. Methods: Using the Health and Retirement Study (2000-2016), we estimated logistic regression models to examine trends in dementia prevalence and incidence, and mortality for those with and without dementia. Results: The relative decline was about 2.4% per year for dementia prevalence and 1.9% for dementia incidence. Mortality declined similarly for those with and without dementia. Improved educational attainment accounted for decline in incidence, some of the decline in prevalence, and had a negligible role in mortality. Discussion: The declines in dementia incidence provide evidence that dementia prevalence should continue to decline in the near future. These declines are most likely largely driven by continued improvements in older adult education.

Trends in young-adult mortality between the 1990s and the 2000s in urban and non-urban areas in Belgium: the role of a changing educational composition in overall mortality decline.

This study probes into the evolution in young-adult mortality according to urbanisation degree in Belgium and moves beyond mere description through decomposing mortality trends into changes in educational distribution and in overall mortality. As most of young-adult deaths are preventable and an enormous cost and loss to society, this study addresses a highly relevant public-health topic. Individual record-linked data between the Belgian censuses of 1991 and 2001 and register data on death and emigrations are used. Age-standardized mortality rates (ASMR), directly standardized to the European Population of 2013 are calculated with 95% confidence intervals (CI), as well as a decomposition measure to pinpoint the proportion mortality change attributable to differences in educational composition over time. The young-adult population consists of 2,458,637 19-34 year-olds in 1991, with 11,898 deaths in a five-year period, and is slightly smaller in 2001 with 2,174,368 young adults and 8138 deaths. Overall, there is a positive evolution towards lower young-adult mortality, with the strongest declines in men living in large urban areas (ASMR from 149.0 [CI 142.1-155.8] in 1991-1996 to 94.6 [88.9-100.3] in 2001-2006). Decomposition analysis shows that the decrease in male mortality in non-urban areas over time is largely due to changes in the educational composition, while mortality in urban areas mainly decreases because of a decline in overall mortality. In urban areas all educational groups have benefitted over time. This clearly demonstrates that living and growing up in an urban area does not always have to imply a health penalty, but can have health advantages as well.

The effect of change in educational composition on population ageing.

Official Swedish demographic projections have systematically underestimated the number of older people. One explanation behind the underestimation may be found in the fact that the demographic projections are not taking into account socio-economic mortality differentials. We performed alternative demographic scenarios based on assumptions of unchanged and continuing declining mortality, with and without taking into account socio-economic gradients in mortality. According to a scenario based on assumption on declining mortality rates per age group, sex and educational level, the number of older persons (65+) in Sweden will increase by 62% during the period 2000-2035. This can be compared to an increase by 54% in a scenario that does not take into account future structural differences in educational levels and the latest trends in socio-economic inequality in life expectancy (the method used by statistical offices). The socio-economic structure of the older population is significantly changing over the years. We project that by year 2035, only 20% of women 80 years and older will have a low educational level, compared to about 75-80% today. The change in socio-economic structure is similar for the older men. Standard demographic projections that do not take into account socio-economic mortality differentials, risk underestimating the number of older people and hiding dramatic changes in population composition. Taking into account socio-economic mortality differentials results in alternative projections giving us new information regarding the future size and socio-economic composition of the older population. We recommend use of this information in health care and long-term care human resources planning or when assessing financial sustainability of health care, long-term care and pension systems in the future.