ABSTRACT
While health inequalities have invariably been of immense interdisciplinary research interest, the COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced the relevance of this topic. This chapter focuses on education-specific health disparities, because educational attainment is probably the most prominently investigated characteristic stratifying subsequent health over the life course. Using this illustrative example, theoretical explanations that predict the amplification of inequality in general and education-specific health disparities in particular are contrasted with approaches suggesting that education-specific health disparities decrease over the life course. To examine these explanations, scholars face statistical challenges: confounding bias, overcontrol bias, and endogenous selection bias may endanger the validity of conclusions. Here, empirical analyses based on the long-running, multi-cohort panel data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) illustrate the importance of tackling these obstacles. Overcontrol bias and endogenous selection bias, in particular, can have drastic consequences on results. The chapter concludes by outlining some predictions of how the COVID-19 pandemic may affect the assessment of life course patterns in education-specific health disparities.
