School Tracking and Mental Health

Petri Böckerman (), Mika Haapanen, Christopher Jepsen and Alexandra Roulet ()
Additional contact information
Alexandra Roulet: INSEAD

No 12733, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We examine the effects of a comprehensive school reform on mental health. The reform postponed the tracking of students into vocational and academic schools from age 11 to age 16. The reform was implemented gradually across Finnish municipalities between 1972 and 1977. We use difference-in-differences variation and administrative data. Our results show that there is no discernible effect on mental health related hospitalizations on average even though the effect is precisely estimated. Heterogeneity analysis shows that, after the reform, females from highly-educated families were more likely to be hospitalized for depression.

Keywords: depression; mental health; comprehensive school; tracking age; hospitalization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 I26 I28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 59 pages
Date: 2019-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-eur, nep-hea and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published - published in: Journal of Human Capital, 2021, 15 (2), 291-345

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https://docs.iza.org/dp12733.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: School Tracking and Mental Health (2021)
Working Paper: School Tracking and Mental Health (2019)
Working Paper: School Tracking and Mental Health (2019)
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