We examine whether the least educated population groups experienced the worst mortality trends at the beginning of the 21st century by measuring changes in mortality across education quartiles. We document sharply differing gender patterns. Among women, mortality trends improved fairly monotonically with education. Conversely, male trends for the lowest three education quartiles were often similar. For both sexes, the gap in mortality between the top 25 percent and the bottom 75 percent is growing. However, there are many groups for whom these patterns are reversed – with better experiences for the less educated – or where the differences are statistically indistinguishable.

我们通过衡量受教育程度四分位数的死亡率变化来检验受教育程度最低的人群是否在 21 世纪初经历了最糟糕的死亡率趋势。我们记录了截然不同的性别模式。在女性中，死亡率趋势随着教育而单调改善。相反，教育程度最低的三个四分位数的男性趋势往往相似。对于两性而言，前 25% 和后 75% 之间的死亡率差距正在扩大。然而，对于许多群体来说，这些模式是相反的——受教育程度较低的人有更好的经历——或者差异在统计上无法区分。