Does higher education matter for health?

Sisi Ji () and Zheyi Zhu ()
Additional contact information
Sisi Ji: Cardiff Business School
Zheyi Zhu: Cardiff Business School

No E2022/4, Cardiff Economics Working Papers from Cardiff University, Cardiff Business School, Economics Section

Abstract: Using 6 sweeps from 1958 British NCDS data we adopt a quasi-parametric approach of propensity score matching to estimate causal effects of higher education attainment on a wide range of cohorts health-related outcomes at ages 33, 42 and 50. The non-pecuniary benefits to HE attainments on health are substantial. Higher educated cohorts are more likely to report better health, maintain a healthy weight, be non-smokers and to have a higher sense of control on drinking alcohol and are less likely to be obese. We also highlight the importance of investigating incremental returns to HE within the lifetime of cohorts. Effects on self-reported health (SRH), BMI, drinking alcohol increase with age but continuously decrease with smoking frequency. When taking into account gender heterogeneity, HE has a larger effect on BMI and likelihood of being obese for males and a greater effect on SRH and drinking alcohol and smoking frequencies for females. Furthermore, we find no significant evidence that HE reduces the likelihood of depression, both for males and females.

Keywords: Casual effect; Health; Higher Education; Propensity Score matching (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C21 I12 I23 I26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 41 pages
Date: 2022-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-eur and nep-hea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://carbsecon.com/wp/E2022_4.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cdf:wpaper:2022/4

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Cardiff Economics Working Papers from Cardiff University, Cardiff Business School, Economics Section Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Yongdeng Xu ().