“The reversed gender gap and the education gradient in health: A cohort perspective”

Taking a cohort approach, we expect the health returns from schooling for women to have changed against the background of the reversal of the gender gap in higher education. Using information from the European Social Survey (seven waves: 2002– 2014) for individuals 25 to 85 years of age (Nmen = 114,797; Nwomen = 136,179) in 30 European countries, we observe diminishing direct health returns from education across female cohorts. This trend has driven the reversal of the gender advantage in direct health benefits from schooling to the detriment of women. Second, we see changes in the indirect health benefits of educational attainment, through its impact on the labor and marriage market situation of women. These indirect effects suppress the trend of the decreasing direct relevance of education for women’s health. Although our findings support the female-favorable gap in the total health-education linkage, they also point to its historical embeddedness.