The relationship between educational attainment and waiting time among the elderly in Norway

We investigate whether educational attainment affects waiting time of elderly patients in somatic hospitals. We consider three distinct pathways; that patients with different educational attainment have different disease patterns, that patients with different levels of education receive treatments at different hospitals, and that patient choice and supply of local health services within hospital catchment areas explain unequal waiting time of different educational groups. We find evidence of an educational gradient in waiting time for male patients, but not for female patients. Conditional on age, male patients with tertiary education wait 45% shorter than male patients with secondary or primary education. The first pathway is not quantitatively important as controlling for disease patters has little effect on relative waiting times. The second pathway is important. Relative to patients with primary education, variation in waiting time and education level across local hospitals contributes to higher waiting time for male patients with secondary education and female patients with secondary or tertiary education and lower waiting time for male patients with tertiary education. These effects are in the order of 15–20%. The third pathway is also quantitatively important. The educational gradients within catchment areas disappear when we control for travel distance and supply of private specialists.