Socioeconomic inequalities in smoking-attributable mortality in Europe; understanding trends 2000-2020 27 2 In Figure 4 the gap in partial life expectancy between higher and lower educated groups is decomposed into contributions from smoking-related mortality and other causes, for each year between 2000 and 2020. Lower educated women had up to 2.8 years lower life expectancy compared to higher educated women (Lithuania, 2019). This gap increased over time for all countries, except for Switzerland where the gap seemed to stabilize over time. Lithuania showed a more irregular pattern over time. The contribution of smoking-attributable mortality to the gap in life expectancy between lower and higher educated women differs. In about half of the countries, Austria, Estonia, Finland, Italy (Turin), Lithuania and Spain (Barcelona), the contribution of smoking-attributable mortality to educational inequalities is increasing. In Belgium, Sweden and Switzerland, it is stable since 2010. In Denmark, the contribution of smoking to educational inequalities in life expectancy decreases over time. The contribution of mortality due to other causes on the life expectancy gap was either stable or slowly increasing among women, except for Estonia where it decreased over time. Among men, up to 5 years difference in partial life expectancy between lower and higher educated was observed (Lithuania, 2019, Figure 4), with mixed trends in these inequalities across countries. Increases (Denmark, Lithuania, Spain and Italy) and decreases (Austria, Switzerland, and Estonia) were observed, and in Sweden, Belgium and Finland patterns in educational differences changed around 2010 into slightly increasing, decreasing or stable respectively. A more homogeneous pattern however was observed for the contribution of smoking to the difference in life expectancy between lower and higher educated. Over time, the contribution of smoking to educational inequalities in life expectancy decreased for all countries, except for Lithuania where after an initial increase the gap between lower and higher educated stabilized after 2015. The contribution of mortality from other causes to these inequalities increased in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Italy (Turin), Lithuania, Spain and to some extent Sweden.
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