Inequality in Mortality Over the Life Course: Is it Growing and for Whom?

There has been a great deal of recent research and publicity about increases in inequality in life expectancy and mortality over the past 20 years (most recently Chetty et al 2015, Lee et al. 2015, Case and Deaton 2015). Contrary to this literature, we show that there have been strong improvements in life expectancy among the poor. In particular, mortality among poor children improved at a faster rate than among rich children, implying decreasing inequality in mortality at young ages. We also discuss in detail the limitations of different measures of disparities in mortality that have been used in the literature, and why many studies have come to less favorable conclusions. Overall, our analysis draws a positive picture of developments in health inequality over the past decades. Our results suggest that even in times of increasing economic inequality, increases in health inequality are optional and depend on policy.