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date: 22 April 2025

The Effect of Education on Health and Mortality: A Review of Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Evidencelocked

The Effect of Education on Health and Mortality: A Review of Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Evidencelocked

  • Titus Galama, Titus GalamaCenter for Economic and Social Research, University of Southern California
  • Adriana Lleras-MuneyAdriana Lleras-MuneyDepartment of Economics, University of California, Los Angeles
  • , and Hans van KippersluisHans van KippersluisSchool of Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam

Summary

Education is strongly associated with better health and longer lives. However, the extent to which education causes health and longevity is widely debated. We develop a human capital framework to structure the interpretation of the empirical evidence and review evidence on the causal effects of education on mortality and its two most common preventable causes: smoking and obesity. We focus attention on evidence from randomized controlled trials, twin studies, and quasi-experiments. There is no convincing evidence of an effect of education on obesity, and the effects on smoking are only apparent when schooling reforms affect individuals’ track or their peer group, but not when they simply increase the duration of schooling. An effect of education on mortality exists in some contexts but not in others and seems to depend on (i) gender, (ii) the labor market returns to education, (iii) the quality of education, and (iv) whether education affects the quality of individuals’ peers.

Subjects

  • Health, Education, and Welfare Economics

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