The Effect of Education on Health Cross-Country Evidence

Raquel Fonseca (fonseca.raquel@uqam.ca) and Yuhui Zheng

No WR-864, Working Papers from RAND Corporation

Abstract: This paper sheds light on the causal relationship between education and health outcomes. It combines three surveys (SHARE, HRS and ELSA) that include nationally representative samples of people aged 50 and over from thirteen OECD countries. It uses variation in the timing of educational reforms across these countries as an instrument for education. Using IV-Probit models, it finds causal evidence that more years of education lead to a lower probability of reporting poor health and lower prevalence for diabetes and hypertension. These effects are larger than those from the Probit, that do not control for the endogeneity of education. The relationship between education and cancer is positive in both Probit and IV-Probit models. The causal impacts of education on other chronic conditions as well as functional status are not established using IV-Probit models.

Keywords: education; health; causality; compulsory schooling laws (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 25
Date: 2011-08
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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Related works:
Working Paper: The Effect of Education on Health: Cross-Country Evidence (2013)
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