Language skills differences between adults without formal education and low formal education

Background The influence of education on cognition has been extensively researched, particularly in countries with high levels of illiteracy. However, the impact of low education in all cognitive functions appears to differ. Regarding to language, the effects of education on many linguistic tasks—supported by different processing—remain unclear. The primary objective of this study was to determine whether oral language task performance differs among individuals with no formal and low-educated subjects, as measured by the Brazilian Montreal-Toulouse Language Assessment Battery (MTL-BR). This is the only language battery available for use in Brazil, but lacks normative data for illiterate individuals. The secondary objective was to gather data for use as clinical parameters in assessing persons with aphasia (PWA) not exposed to a formal education. Methods A total of 30 healthy illiterate individuals aged 34–60 years were assessed. All participants underwent the MTL-BR Battery, excluding its written communication tasks. The data obtained in the present study were compared against results of a previous investigation of individuals with 1–4 years of education evaluated using the same MTL-BR instrument. Results Statistically significant differences in performance were found between non-formal education and the low-educated (2–4 years) groups on the tasks Auditory Comprehension, Repetition, Orthographic/Phonological Fluency, Number dictation, Reading of numbers and also on simple numerical calculations. Conclusion The study results showed that individuals with no formal education/illiterate had worse performance than low-education individuals on some of the language tasks of the MTL-Br Battery, suggesting that each year of education impacts cognitive-language performance. Also, data were obtained which can serve as a guide for PWA not exposed to a formal education.

On the measurement of healthy lifespan inequality

Background Current measures to monitor population health include indicators of (i) average length-of-life (life expectancy), (ii) average length-of-life spent in good health (health expectancy), and (iii) variability in length-of-life (lifespan inequality). What is lacking is an indicator measuring the extent to which healthy lifespans are unequally distributed across individuals (the so-called ‘healthy lifespan inequality’ indicators). Methods We combine information on age-specific survival with the prevalence of functional limitation or disability in Spain (2014–2017) by sex and level of education to estimate age-at-disability onset distributions. Age-, sex- and education-specific prevalence rates of adult individuals’ daily activities limitations were based on the GALI index derived from Spanish National Health Surveys held in 2014 and 2017. We measured inequality using the Gini index. Results In contemporary Spain, education differences in health expectancy are substantial and greatly exceed differences in life expectancy. The female advantage in life expectancy disappears when considering health expectancy indicators, both overall and across education groups. The highly educated exhibit lower levels of lifespan inequality, and lifespan inequality is systematically higher among men. Our new healthy lifespan inequality indicators suggest that the variability in the ages at which physical daily activity limitations start are substantially larger than the variability in the ages at which individuals die. Healthy lifespan inequality tends to decrease with increasing educational attainment, both for women and for men. The variability in ages at which physical limitations start is slightly higher for women than for men. Conclusions The suggested indicators uncover new layers of health inequality that are not traceable with currently existing approaches. Low-educated individuals tend to not only die earlier and spend a shorter portion of their lives in good health than their highly educated counterparts, but also face greater variation in the eventual time of death and in the age at which they cease enjoying good health—a multiple burden of inequality that should be taken into consideration when evaluating the performance of public health systems and in the elaboration of realistic working-life extension plans and the design of equitable pension reforms.

Development and Initial Validation of the Nonparticipation in Nonformal Education Questionnaire

Nonformal adult education (NFE) provides adults with the opportunity to obtain competences needed to adapt to today’s changing job market. Despite the well-documented positive effects of NFE, there remains a lack of valid research instruments to assess factors of nonparticipation. Specifically, defining the perspectives of social groups with the highest incidence of barriers and the lowest level of participation in NFE has not been a primary research goal. This study describes the development and initial validation of a novel research tool entitled the Nonparticipation in Nonformal Education Questionnaire (NP-NFE-Q). The analysis covers the use of the NP-NFE-Q on a representative sample of the adult population ( n = 878) as well as three additional cohorts: low-educated workers ( n = 227), persons caring for children under the age of three ( n = 227), and retired persons ( n = 232). The results consistently support the validation of a correlated five-factor model, which includes two situational, one institutional and two dispositional factors.

Educational Pairings and Fertility Across Europe: How Do the Low-Educated Fare?

Recent research suggests that the fertility-education relationship may be mediated by the educational attainment of the partner, especially among the tertiary-educated. However, there are no studies focusing on the couple-education-fertility nexus among couples who achieved only basic educational attainment, even though resource pooling theory predicts differences in family formation by couples’ joint levels of socio-economic resources. We address this research gap and investigate how educational pairings among married and cohabiting partners relate to second and third birth transitions across 22 European countries, using data from the EU-SILC (European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions) panel and discrete time event history models. Our findings show significantly lower second and third birth transition rates among homogamous low-educated couples compared to heterogamous couples with one low- and one medium or highly-educated partner in the Nordic countries, but not across the rest of Europe. However, couples with one or two low-educated partners have significantly lower second birth rates compared with couples with two highly-educated partners in all European regions.

The increasing educational divide in the life course development of subjective wellbeing across cohorts

Labour market, health, and wellbeing research provide evidence of increasing educational inequality as individuals age, representing a pattern consistent with the mechanism of cumulative (dis)advantage. However, individual life courses are embedded in cohort contexts that might alter life course differentiation processes. Thus, this study analyses cohort variations in education-specific life course patterns of subjective wellbeing (i.e. life, health and income satisfaction). Drawing upon prior work and theoretical considerations from life course theories, this study expects to find increasing educational life course inequality in younger cohorts. The empirical analysis relies on German Socio-Economic Panel data (1984–2016, v33). The results obtained from cohort-averaged random effects growth curve models confirm the cumulative (dis)advantage mechanism for educational life course inequality in subjective wellbeing. Furthermore, the results reveal substantial cohort variation in life course inequality patterns: regarding life and income satisfaction, the results indicate that the cumulative (dis)advantage mechanism does not apply to the youngest cohorts (individuals born between 1970 and 1985) under study. In contrast, the health satisfaction results suggest that educational life course inequality follows the predictions of the cumulative (dis)advantage mechanism only for individuals born after 1959. While the life course trajectories of highly educated individuals change only slightly across cohorts, the subjective wellbeing trajectories of low-educated individuals start to decline at earlier life course stages in younger cohorts, leading to increasing life course inequality over time. Thus, the overall findings of this study contribute to our understanding of whether predictions derived from sociological middle range theories are universal across societal contexts.

Mediating role of multimorbidity in inequality in mortality: a register study on the Danish population

BackgroundThe social inequality in mortality is due to differential incidence of several disorders and injury types, as well as differential survival. The resulting clustering and possible interaction in disadvantaged groups of several disorders make multimorbidity a potentially important component in the health divide. This study decomposes the effect of education on mortality into a direct effect, a pure indirect effect mediated by multimorbidity and a mediated interaction between education and multimorbidity.MethodsThe study uses the Danish population registers on the total Danish population aged 45–69 years. A multimorbidity index based on all somatic and psychiatric hospital contacts as well as prescribed medicines includes 22 diagnostic groups weighted together by their 5 years mortality risk as weight. The Aalen additive hazard model is used to estimate and decompose the 5 years risk difference in absolute numbers of deaths according to educational status.ResultsMost (69%–79%) of the effect is direct not involving multimorbidity, and the mediated effect is for low educated women 155 per 100 000 of which 87 is an effect of mediated interaction. For low educated men, the mediated effect is 250 per 100 000 of which 93 is mediated interaction.ConclusionMultimorbidity plays an important role in the social inequality in mortality among middle aged in Denmark and mediated interaction represents 5%–17%. As multimorbidity is a growing challenge in specialised health systems, the mediated interaction might be a relevant indicator of inequities in care of multimorbid patients.

Workplace Cold and Perceived Work Ability: Paradoxically Greater Disadvantage for More vs. Less-Educated Poultry Industry Workers in Thailand

The association between worksite temperature and perceived work ability (WA) in various educational classes remains unknown. Therefore, we interviewed 286 poultry industry workers in Thailand about their WA and linked their responses to worksite temperature. WA was based on the self-assessment of current work ability compared with their lifetime best ability (scores 0–10). Education was classified as high (university or vocational school) or low (less education). Temperature was classified as cold (−22–10°C) or warm (10–23°C). WA and the occurrence of a low WA were regressed on worksite temperature, education, and their interaction with the adjustment for sex, age, job category, physical work strain, moving between cold and warm sites, thermal insulation of clothing, relative humidity, and air velocity. The average worksite temperature was 10°C for high- and 1°C for low-educated workers. The average WA score was 8.32 (SD, 1.33; range, 4–10) and classified as low (<8) in 23% of the workers. In highly-educated workers, the adjusted mean WA decreased from 9.11 in the warm areas to 8.02 in the cold areas and the prevalence of a low WA increased from 11 to 30%, while no significant change was observed in less-educated workers. The WA score was estimated to decline by 10% more (95% CI, 4–16%) in the cold areas for the more vs. less-educated workers and the prevalence of a poor WA was estimated to increase 3.09 times (95% CI, 1.43–5.45) more. Highly-educated workers in this industry are a risk group that should be given customized advice.

Poverty in the EU using augmented measures of financial resources: The role of assets and debt

Despite clear limitations, poverty research in the rich world overwhelmingly relies on income-based measures. Households may have significant savings and assets that they can draw on to boost their living standards, but may also have debts that depress the living standard they can actually achieve with their disposable income. Using data from the Eurosystem Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS), this article offers a picture of poverty in 17 EU countries that takes into account assets and debt, using various approaches. While earlier studies have found that poverty rates tend to be lower when wealth is accounted for, this study highlights the situation of those who become or remain poor even when savings and assets are included. It focuses both on within-country patterns of joint income–wealth poverty and on cross-country differences. It is shown that the elderly are generally less prone to being poor once assets are accounted for. However, for renter households with a young, female, low educated, unemployed or inactive and single head, the risk of being poor when assets and debt are accounted for remains high and in some cases even increases. That is generally the case because they have few assets, rather than because of high debts. The substantial variation in poverty rates observed across countries can to some extent be accounted for by socio-demographic factors, but a lot of variation still remains unaccounted for.

Livelihood Diversification in Rural India

This study aims to ascertain the level of livelihood diversification and examines the socio-economic contexts of livelihood diversification in rural India. Employing data from India Human Development Survey (IHDS-II), 2011-12, an Inverse Herfindhal-Harschman Diversity Index (IHHDI) was calculated incorporating eleven income sources (livelihood strategies). In addition, the contribution of each strategy in households’ total income has been calculated. Furthermore, binary logistic regression was applied to predict the households’ engagement in each livelihood strategy and the likelihood of high IHHDI. Results indicate that the higher livelihood diversifications were found among the households with large size, high dependency, lower social groups, low educated, landless, marginal and small farming, and economically poor. This study also highlights the significance of diversification strategies in raising households’ income. It is suggested that broadened policy support is required to promote diversification for economic development in rural India.

Germany's low SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence confirms effective containment in 2020: Results of the nationwide RKI-SOEP study

Pre-vaccine SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence data from Germany are scarce outside hotspots, and socioeconomic disparities remained largely unexplored. The nationwide RKI-SOEP study with 15,122 adult participants investigated seroprevalence and testing in a supplementary wave of the Socio-Economic-Panel conducted predominantly in October-November 2020. Self-collected oral-nasal swabs were PCR-positive in 0.4% and Euroimmun anti-SARS-CoV-2-S1-IgG ELISA from dry capillary blood in 1.3% (95% CI 0.9-1.7%, population-weighted, corrected for sensitivity=0.811, specificity=0.997). Seroprevalence was 1.7% (95% CI 1.2-2.3%) when additionally adjusting for antibody decay. Overall infection prevalence including self-reports was 2.1%. We estimate 45% (95% CI 21-60%) undetected cases and analyses suggest lower detection in socioeconomically deprived districts. Prior SARS-CoV-2 testing was reported by 18% from the lower educational group compared to 25% and 26% from the medium and high educational group (p<0.0001). Symptom-triggered test frequency was similar across educational groups. However, routine testing was more common in low-educated adults, whereas travel-related testing and testing after contact with an infected person was more common in highly educated groups. In conclusion, pre-vaccine SARS-CoV-2-seroprevalence in Germany was very low. Notified cases appear to capture more than half of infections but may underestimate infections in lower socioeconomic groups. These data confirm the successful containment strategy of Germany until winter 2020.