How Does Education Affect Health Of The Elderly In China

China is experiencing huge economic transformation, social transformation and profound cultural changes. Due to rapid population aging, China is also transforming from a young society to an aging society. The coming act of delaying retirement is in progress, while the health of workforce will affect China’s labor market and socio-economic development. As a result, the health of the elderly has become the focus of attention. As two important forms of human capital, there is a significant relationship between education and health. Under this background, the study about the causal relationship between education and health, as well as the mechanisms how education affect health, is very significant.Starting from the relationship between education and health, this paper reviews the international and domestic researches on the causal relationship between health and education, and puts forward the perspective in the first part of this article. This paper analyzes the relationship between education and health grouped by gender and rural-urban by using the latest sample of the elderly. In this paper, we test the model by using IV methods. Meanwhile, this paper also uses probit model to compare with the results. In addition, the paper analyzes the path effects of education on health. When conducting empirical analyses, we use objective and subjective indicators to measure the health of the elderly.The empirical results show that:(1) Education has a significant impact on health. Education can improve the physical health and self-rated health of the elderly. It shows that the protective effect of education on health persists, and continuing education will bring a lifetime of "health bonus." (2) There exists an inequality of health between the elderly of urban and rural areas. Education can promote self-rated health for rural elderly more significantly. (3) Education can affect the lifestyle and health behaviors of the elderly, and education can affect health of the elderly through such path variables.In the paper, we propose the following policy recommendations:(1) Increase investment in education. The government can eliminate the inequality of health between the rural and urban areas by promoting equality on achieving educational opportunities. (2) The government can enhance health through healthy-intervene polices, such as expanding health knowledge by organizing activities in counties.