Does Education Cause Better Health? Explaining Educational-related Inequalities In Health

This paper extends the analysis of the relationship between health and schooling by examining the impact of education on the choice of medical care inputs and the subsequent relationship between these inputs and overall health.We address whether the relationship between education and health can be interpreted causally. Alternatively, both may be determined by common unobserved factors such as individual time preferences. We add to the primarily CHNS-based evidence by using a panel data set of employed persons, and use education reforms to instrument education effects on self-reported health (SRH), body mass index (BMI) and an indicator for never been smoking.In addition to the assessment of the effects of education, the study contrasts two models of explaining educational-related health inequalities: the mediation model and the moderator model. Two main findings are presented: (1) Both education and lifestyle factors have the expected effects on health. (2) The results do not permit a clear-cut conclusion as to which of the two models of educational-related health inequalities should be preferred.In particular, we examine the productive effects of education on health as well as the allocative effects of education on the consumption of curative and preventive medical care and other lifestyle choices. It is significantly positive. Additionally, controlling for unobserved heterogeneity, a possibility accounted for in few previous studies, has a substantial impact on the estimates.Finally, the results suggest that education has a causal impact on health, and that this effect is perhaps larger than has been previously estimated in the literature. So, some suggestions are given.