Educational differences in mortality and hospitalisation for cardiovascular diseases

•Educational gains in the survival probability till age 63 are substantial.•Men with primary education would gain the most from improving education.•The gains are due to educational difference in hospitalisation for the high educated.•The gains are direct educational effects for the low educated. This paper addresses how the educational gradient in the mortality rate is influenced by the educational difference in hospitalisation for Cardiovascular diseases. We account for possible selective hospitalisation, by using ‘Timing-of-events’- model and for selection into education, by using an inverse propensity weighting method. Based on the estimated model we simulate the educational gains of improving education and decompose these educational gains into an indirect effect, running through changes in the hospitalisation process, and a direct effect due to other factors. We use Swedish Military Conscription Data (1951–1960), for males only, linked to administrative Swedish registers. Our empirical results show that the implied educational gains in the survival probability till age 63 are 2% to 5.5%-point, with the largest effect for the low educated. These gains are mainly due educational difference in hospitalisation for the high educated (1.3%-point) and mainly due to other factors (4.9%-point) for the low educated. However, for the (significant) educational gain in implied months lost due premature mortality before age 63 (2 to 9 months) we do not find a significant impact of the educational difference in hospitalisation.