Black-white mortality inequalities

Racial inequality, particularly between blacks and whites, long has been of major concern in the United States. This inequality may take a number of forms, for example, with regard to schooling, housing, health, employment options, and income. In this paper we estimate how much of the 'observed' racial inequality in age-specific death rates in the Retirement History Survey can be attributed to observed differences in variables in hazard functions. The exact answer depends on what independent variables are excluded, but fairly standard explanatory variables explain 50% to much more of the observed greater death rates of black men.