Summary: Education Policy for Health Equality

The report Education Policy for Health Equality: Lessons for the Nordic Region (2019), analyses how education policy is likely to affect health equality in the Nordic countries. This summary includes recommendations and conclusions from  the report.Despite having the most munificent welfare states and  the lowest levels of income inequality worldwide, Nordic countries do not generally achieve higher health equality  than other nations. This conundrum has become known as  the “Nordic health equality paradox” in the public-health debate.The educational health dividend in Nordic countries may partly reflect the countries’ knowledge-intensive labour markets, which demand knowledge and skills that lower-educated individuals do not possess. This is supported by a comparatively strong relationship between literacy and numeracy scores in the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) and the probability of being in full-time employment in the Nordic region.