The Effect of Education on Health
Cross-Country Evidence
Published Aug 26, 2011
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.
Topics
Document Details
- Copyright: RAND Corporation
- Availability: Web-Only
- Year: 2011
- Pages: 25
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.7249/WR864
- Document Number: WR-864
Citation
RAND Style Manual
Chicago Manual of Style
Fonseca Benito, Raquel and Yuhui Zheng, The Effect of Education on Health: Cross-Country Evidence, RAND Corporation, WR-864, 2011. As of September 15, 2024: https://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/WR864.html
Fonseca Benito, Raquel and Yuhui Zheng, The Effect of Education on Health: Cross-Country Evidence. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2011. https://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/WR864.html.
This paper series was made possible by the NIA funded RAND Center for the Study of Aging and the NICHD funded RAND Population Research Center.
This publication is part of the RAND working paper series. RAND working papers are intended to share researchers' latest findings and to solicit informal peer review. They have been approved for circulation by RAND but may not have been formally edited or peer reviewed.
This document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law. This representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for noncommercial use only. Unauthorized posting of this publication online is prohibited; linking directly to this product page is encouraged. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of its research documents for commercial purposes. For information on reprint and reuse permissions, please visit www.rand.org/pubs/permissions.
RAND is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.