PhD defence J.R. (Jose) Rubio Valverde

Brief summary on the aim of the doctoral thesis:

It has long been established that individuals of lower socio-economic position (SEP) experience higher mortality than those of higher position, and this occurs regardless of whether education, occupation, or income is used as a measure of SEP. These socioeconomic inequalities in health are not restricted to mortality, but also include even larger disparities in healthy life years or years lived free of disability. The aim of this thesis is to contribute to the understanding of socioeconomic inequalities of health expectancies in Europe, including description, trends, explanation, and implications, with a focus on educational inequalities.

The first aim of this thesis was to describe educational inequalities in disability in European countries by assessing the between-survey comparability of the widely used Global Activity Limitation indicator (GALI) and by describing its trends by education over the last two decades. The second aim was to explain these inequalities by identifying the risk factors that contribute most to educational inequalities in life expectancy (LE), disability-free life expectancy (DFLE) and life expectancy with disability (DLE) in several European countries. The third aim was to evaluate the impact of future increases in the retirement age in the Netherlands on educational inequalities in the expected number of years in good health for individuals before or after the retirement age.