Higher education helps protect women against faster ageing

New research using ELSA data shows that higher education is linked to slower physical ageing in both sexes, but the benefit is greater for women.

A new study using data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) has found that though women tend to age faster than men when it comes to physical health, more educated women stay younger than men for longer.

Researchers tracked a wide range of biological indicators of ageing in adults aged 50 and over, including blood pressure, lung function, grip strength, cholesterol, and inflammatory markers. They followed participants over time to build up a picture of how the body changes with age and whether these patterns vary by sex and education.

The results showed that, on average, women experienced a faster rate of physiological ageing across multiple biological systems than men. As a result, though men and women had similar physiological ages at midlife, by older ages, women were physiologically older than men. However, this was only true for less educated women. More educated women were physiologically younger than men at midlife and maintained this advantage to older age.

This study is one of the first in the UK to use a comprehensive measure of “physiological ageing” over time rather than relying on physiological age measured at a single time point. By combining measures from across different body systems, it provides a broader view of how ageing affects physical health.

Lead author Dr Mikaela Bloomberg said: “Our findings reiterate the role of early life exposures like education in health during ageing. Tackling health inequalities means starting much earlier in the life course.”

These findings highlight the key role of education in women’s health. They suggest that efforts to reduce inequalities in later life should start well before old age, addressing the long-term impact of education on physical ageing.

They also suggest that policies to promote gender equity in higher education may contribute to improving women’s health across a range of ageing-related outcomes.

Reference: Bloomberg M, Steptoe A. (2025) Sex and education differences in trajectories of physiological ageing: longitudinal analysis of a prospective English cohort study. Age and Ageing, 54(4):afaf067. doi:10.1093/ageing/afaf067