This study examines how social science research can more effectively inform policy interventions aimed at reducing social inequalities. Focusing on health disparities by social origin, it identifies three directions: reformulating theoretical frameworks in terms of hypothetical interventions, strengthening the alignment between theory and analytical strategies, and employing methods that simulate the effects of interventions. I reformulate previous theories to derive three testable hypotheses concerning the equalization of educational attainment and returns to education across social origin groups. To evaluate these hypotheses, I analyze data from the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) using a recently proposed random equalization decomposition approach. I compare the results of this method with those produced by conventional approaches—specifically, the product and difference methods—and demonstrate that only the random equalization decomposition provides quantities appropriate for testing intervention-based hypotheses. The results suggest that equalizing higher education rates across social origin groups consistently reduces health inequality for both women and men, and across all assessed age and cohort groups. Equalizing returns to higher education across social origin groups tends to increase rather than mitigate health inequalities, although these results are less conclusive. The study concludes by discussing further avenues to enhance the policy relevance of inequality research.
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