Abstract
Socioeconomic differences in health, is a well known problem in most countries, also in Norway. Studies show that there exists a social gradient; a step-wise increase in health as socioeconomic status (SES) increases.
The objective of this thesis is twofold; first is the investigation whether there is an association between level of education and morbidity and disability among Norwegian men and women. Second, is the attempt to explain this educational gradient in health through differences in discounting of the future and its effect on lifestyle, which subsequently has an effect on health.
Multiple regression analysis is performed on the dataset obtained from ‘Survey of living conditions 1998’ carried out by Statistics Norway. The results from the analysis show that, in fact, there is an educational gradient in health among Norwegian women and men aged 60 and above. As level of education increases, morbidity decreases. The dependent variables ‘Self-Assessed Health’ and ‘Chronic Illness’ are inversely correlated to ‘Education’. We also found a clear link between lifestyle-related variables such as ‘Exercise’ and ‘BMI’ and health. This is strengthened by the stronger correlation found between ‘Chronic Illness’ and ‘Education’, compared to ‘Actual Illness’ and ‘Education’. On the other hand, no correlation was found between ‘Heart/Lung Disease’ and ‘Education’. Neither did we find a significant relationship between level of education and disability. However, the overall results suggest that the educational gradient in health partly may be caused by differences in lifestyle. Discounting, in turn, is suggested as a possible influence on this difference in lifestyle, together with knowledge. Theory about discounting is supported by studies concerning differences in discounting based on educational level. If discounting, in fact, is part of the explanation of the educational gradient in health, it has implications for implementation of policies to reduce socioeconomic differences in health, and it would be interesting to devote further research to this area.