Tirth Bhatta (Sociology) has published "Intercohort Variations in the Education–Health Gradient: Sociohistorical Changes in Early-Life Selection Mechanisms in the United States" in The Journals of Gerontology: Series B. Drawing from the Health and Retirement Survey (1992–2012), this study examines whether changes in early-life selection mechanisms contributes to cohort-specific (born 1890¬–1953) variation in education-based inequalities in later life functional limitations in the U.S. Most of the literature on cohort-specific variation in the effect of education on health treats the distribution of education within a particular cohort as a “starting place” for the question of later life health disparities. Such a premise hinders explorations of changes in early-life selection mechanisms due to substantial sociohistorical changes in opportunity structures in the past century and their role in altering educational differences in health across birth cohorts.
