We examine whether the least educated population groups experienced the worst mortality trends during 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 …

We examine gender and race differences in education-mortality trends among 25-64 year olds in the United States from … 2001-2018. The data indicate that the relationships are heterogeneous with larger mortality reductions for less educated … death associated with changes in overall mortality rates and identify key differences across race groups and education …