Unlucky to be young? The long-term effects of school starting age on smoking behavior and health

Michael Bahrs () and Mathias Schumann ()
Additional contact information
Michael Bahrs: Universität Hamburg
Mathias Schumann: Universität Hamburg

Journal of Population Economics, 2020, vol. 33, issue 2, No 7, 555-600

Abstract: Abstract The literature on school entry laws has shown that relative school starting age affects smoking behavior and health in adolescence, yet it remains unclear whether these effects persist into adulthood. Filling this gap, we analyze the long-term effects of relative school starting age on smoking behavior and health in adulthood. This study employs a fuzzy regression discontinuity design, using school entry rules combined with birth month as an instrument for school starting age. The analysis adopts data from the German Socio-Economic Panel. The results reveal that an increase in relative school starting age significantly reduces the long-term risk of smoking, improves long-term health, and affects physical rather than mental health. Several robustness checks confirm these results. In addition, we present suggestive evidence that the relative age composition of peers and the school environment are important mechanisms.

Keywords: Smoking; Health; Education; School starting age; Regression discontinuity design (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00148-019-00745-6 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:jopoec:v:33:y:2020:i:2:d:10.1007_s00148-019-00745-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... tion/journal/148/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s00148-019-00745-6

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Population Economics is currently edited by K.F. Zimmermann

More articles in Journal of Population Economics from Springer, European Society for Population Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().