Do the More Educated Know More about Health? Evidence from Schooling and HIV Knowledge in Zimbabwe

Jorge Agüero and Prashant Bharadwaj

Economic Development and Cultural Change, 2014, vol. 62, issue 3, 489 - 517

Abstract: We explore a fundamental link between education and health: knowledge about health. Do the educated know more about how certain diseases are spread and how to prevent them? Using age-specific exposure to an education reform in Zimbabwe, we find that women with more schooling engage in HIV-preventing behavior by having fewer sexual partners and know more about how HIV spreads. An extra year of education raises the probability of having comprehensive knowledge of HIV by nearly 10% and decreases by 7 percentage points the probability of having common misconceptions about HIV. We discuss possible channels for how education led to more knowledge about HIV.

Date: 2014
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