Life expectancy inequalities in the elderly by socioeconomic status. Evidence from Italy
Background: life expectancy considerably increased in most developed countries during the twentieth century.
However, the increase in longevity is neither uniform nor random across individuals belonging to various
socioeconomic groups. From an economic policy perspective, the difference in mortality by socioeconomic
conditions challenges the fairness of the social security systems. We focus on the case of Italy and aim at
measuring differences in longevity at older ages by individuals belonging to different socioeconomic groups, also