Introduction
Several economic types of research have demonstrated that there is a strong positive correlation between years of schooling and health. However, the main question centered in this study is the relationship that exists between education and Health (Buckles, et al.2013). This paper will employ several changes that have been made in education and health studies to test the hypothesis that there is a causal relationship between education and health. Results from this study suggest that there is a causal relation ranging from more schooling to better health, which is more significant than the standards regression suggestions
Description
Public intellectuals and policymakers usually emphasize the essence of education. They argue that education results in expanded job opportunities and higher expected earnings. However, there may be other essential benefits of education, which have not been understood appropriately. Recent economic literature reviews on the effects of education on the health of a population found out that there is substantial evidence that links education not only to increase earning potential of an individual but also to reduce criminal behavior. This is also related to increased voting as well as democratic participation and improved health outcomes. Given the fact that education is a crucial multifaceted component that affects health; the research composed in this paper has education and health policy makers, as its targets audiences due to the multiple causative relationships between the two variables. The ability of policymakers and the governments to understand the Education- Health relationship would help them whenever deciding on whether to invest more in education or healthcare.
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Literature Review
With the current empirical economics, hypotheses usually go either way, depending on the economist’s perspective. One might assume that better education leads to better health or better health lead to a better education. Or maybe the fact that education brings more income thus betters health; versus better health helping individuals become more educated. But one thing that we could all agree on is the fact that education correlates with health. Education is one of the major social factors that most economic researchers have cited that is linked to longer lifespans in every country where it has been studied. For example; according to the CDC: for every 100,000 deaths amongst non-high school graduate American males aged between 25 to 64 years old, the mortality rate was 655.2; for the males within the same age group but with high-school diplomas, the mortality rate is 600.9. Whereas; the mortality rate for those with college education or higher given the same parameters was 238.9(Martinek, 2017). Such results are a pure reflection of the fact that the more educated people are, the more likely they are better informed thus making better health choices.
Alternatively, health in young adulthood and childhood years may affect the ability of an individual to receive an education. Educational attainment affects income as well as other aspects of people’s lives, which facilitate access to medical and preventive care. Individuals that are more educated can practice safer behaviors such as deciding not to smoke, often using a seatbelt, take vaccinations, and even exercising regularly more often than an individual that is less educated.
Despite the existence of an empirical relationship between the two constraints, it has been hard to establish the existence of a causal relationship between health and education. This is because of the dual causality issue. The underlying rapport can be rooted from the concept of the disputation that education brings more income, which in return allows better access to better healthcare. But the difference in the income levels only accounts for 20% of the effect that advanced education has on health behaviors (Martinek, 2017).
Additionally, other unseen variables i.e. individual-level behaviors such as patience that make a person to more likely invest in both education and in the long-term health may contribute to the enhanced relationship between education and health. It is therefore hard to find out what way the causation goes and the mechanisms that encourage these effects. Most of the hard empirical analysis addresses the issue of causality emphasis on compulsory educational law changes that were made in 1960. It's for this reason that I’m testing of the hypothesis that education has a crucial social effect on health.
While in search of supporting evidence, we will comb through similar studies that have tried to detect causal effects with robust assessment techniques.
Data
Large scale demographic and improvement studies likewise recognize a critical positive relationship between extending mass education and the health of people. However, numerous other studies particularly the most punctual ones, did not control different health components such as monetary advancement that may be connected to better health. As an outcome, it is constantly recommended that the relationship between extending education and population health is unauthentic due to the effect of general social improvement that includes financial development and the nature of human services. Subsequently, related variables of innovation are frequently expected to prepare for both mass education and more health population. While holding other variables constant; except mortality rate, we could proof the effect of education on health using the data from the National Longitudinal Mortality Study (NLMS), where one more year of education increases life expectancy by 0.18 years; with the discount rate at 3% or 0.6 of a year while disregarding the discount: If we were to assume that each health year is worth conservatively at $75000; This would directly translates into about $13,500 - $44,000 in present value. With such rough estimates we clearly see that the health returns to education upsurge the total returns to education by at least 15% on the lower end and 55 on the upper end.
Works Cited
Martinek, C. (2017, 12 5). Which Came First-Better Education or Better Health? Retrieved 12 15, 2017, from Which Came First: Better Education or Better Health? | St. Louis Fed: http://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/re/articles/?id=2092
Buckles, Kasey, Andreas Hagemann, Ofer Malamud, Melinda S. Morrill, and Abigail K.
Wozniak. 2013. “The Effect of College Education on Health.” Working Paper 19222.
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1621–44.
Grossman, M. 2015. “The Relationship between Health and Schooling: What’s New?”
Working Paper 21609. National Bureau of Economic Research.
http://www.nber.org/papers/w21609.
Institute of Education Sciences. 2015. “Digest of Education Statistics, 2013.” Accessed
http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_303.40.asp.
Lleras-Muney, A. (2006). “The Relationship between Education and Adult Mortality in the
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