Study: Education Gap Linked to Differences in Biological Aging

#1

I guess its time to go back to school :wink:

A new study by USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology researchers shows that Americans with less education are aging faster than their peers with more schooling, and the gap has grown over the last 30 years.

The study examined “biological aging,” which goes deeper than simply counting birthdays. Biological aging measures how the body is changing over time, including how well organs and systems are working. For example, two people who are both 65 may look very different inside: one may have the biological profile of someone younger, while another may show signs of aging earlier.

“Biological age gives us a clearer picture of health than chronological age,” said USC University Professor Eileen Crimmins, the study’s senior author. “It helps us understand who is likely to stay healthy longer and who may be at higher risk for disease and disability.”

A Widening Divide

Using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, the team looked at adults ages 50 to 79 across two periods: 1988–1994 and 2015–2018. They found that while biological aging slowed for everyone, the benefits were significantly greater for people with more education.

For example, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the difference in biological aging between adults with less than a high school education and those with a college degree was about one year. By 2015–2018, the gap had nearly doubled to two years.

“This means that people with more education have slower biological aging than everyone else,” said Mateo Farina, assistant professor of human development and family sciences at the University of Texas at Austin, former USC Leonard Davis School postdoctoral researcher, and first author of the study. “The improvements we see in population health are not being shared equally.”

The study, “ Increasing Educational Inequality in Biological Aging Among U.S. Adults Aged 50–79 From 1988–1994 to 2015–2018,” was published in Demography on July 31, 2025. Along with Farina and Crimmins, the paper was coauthored by Jung Ki Kim of the USC Leonard Davis School.

#2

OK. But trick question: are centenarians and beyond overrepresented among those with higher education? I think not. And if you go to most of the much hyped blue zones, you’ll find rural and peasant populations with minimal education, shepards of Sardinia and farmers of Okinawa, fishermen of Greek islands and so forth. You could say that they didn’t have education opportunities for historical reasons, but so what, they lived longer than their educated countrymen from the cities. Clearly a lack of higher education didn’t hold them back, nor did said education help the city folk.

I suspect noisy correlation data with socioeconomic confounders hopelessly intertwined, lower education levels higher stress levels, poor diets and lifestyle choices, substance abuse and so on all leading to “faster” biological aging. Nothing to do with higher education, other than education allowing higher socioeconomic status, better jobs and less stressful financials. Zero biological factors. All this might lead to some correlations on a population level of normal lifespans, with more older people clustering with degrees, but it breaks down when real biology kicks in at the extreme edge of the bell curve.

But maybe I’m wrong, and my PhD will finally be useful for something. When Death💀 arrives to collect my soul I can wave my degree like garlic at a vampire.