Human capital and longevity. Evidence from 50,000 twins

Petter Lundborg, Carl Hampus Lyttkens and Paul Nystedt;

Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers from HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York

Abstract: Why do well-educated people live longer? We use unique and high-quality data on about 50,000 monozygotic and same-sex dizygotic twins, born between 1886-1958, to address this question. We demonstrate a positive and statistically signiÂ…cant relation between years of schooling and longevity, which remains when we exploit the twin design. This result is robust to controlling for speciÂ…c within-twin-pair differences in early life factors, such as birth weight and proxies for ability and health in the form of body height, as well as to restricting the sample to monozygotic twins.

Keywords: death, longevity, education, endogeneity, stratiÂ…ed partial likelihood, duration analysis; twins (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C41 I11 I12 J12 J14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem and nep-hea
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:yor:hectdg:12/19

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