Working Paper: NBER ID: w16013
Authors: Damon Clark; Heather Royer
Abstract: There is a strong, positive and well-documented correlation between education and health outcomes. There is much less evidence on the extent to which this correlation reflects the causal effect of education on health - the parameter of interest for policy. In this paper we attempt to overcome the difficulties associated with estimating the causal effect of education on health. Our approach exploits two changes to British compulsory schooling laws that generated sharp differences in educational attainment among individuals born just months apart. Using regression discontinuity methods, we confirm that the cohorts just affected by these changes completed significantly more education than slightly older cohorts subject to the old laws. However, we find little evidence that this additional education improved health outcomes or changed health behaviors. We argue that it is hard to attribute these findings to the content of the additional education or the wider circumstances that the affected cohorts faced (e.g., universal health insurance). As such, our results suggest caution as to the likely health returns to educational interventions focused on increasing educational attainment among those at risk of dropping out of high school, a target of recent health policy efforts.
Keywords: education; health; mortality; compulsory schooling; regression discontinuity
JEL Codes: I10; I20; J10
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Education (I29) | Health Outcomes (I14) |
| 1947 Change in Compulsory Schooling Laws (I21) | Educational Attainment (I21) |
| Educational Attainment (I21) | Health Outcomes (I14) |
| 1947 Change in Compulsory Schooling Laws (I21) | Mortality Rates (Ages 45-69) (I12) |
| 1972 Change in Compulsory Schooling Laws (I21) | Mortality Rates (Ages 20-44) (I12) |