Widening socioeconomic inequalities in mortality in six Western European countries

During the past decades a widening of the relative gap in death rates between upper and lower socioeconomic groups has been reported for several European countries. Although differential mortality decline for cardiovascular diseases has been suggested as an important contributory factor, it is not known what its quantitative contribution was, and to what extent other causes of death have contributed to the widening gap in total mortality.

We collected data on mortality by educational level and occupational class among men and women from national longitudinal studies in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, England/Wales, and Italy (Turin), and analysed age-standardized death rates in two recent time periods (1981-1985 and 1991-1995), both total mortality and by cause of death. For simplicity, we report on inequalities in mortality between two broad socioeconomic groups (high and low educational level, non-manual and manual occupations).