The Education-Health Gradient
Open accessAbstract
In this paper, we determine the role played by early cognitive, noncognitive, and health endowments. We identify the causal effect of education on health and health-related behaviors. We develop an empirical model of schooling choice and post-schooling outcomes, where both schooling and the outcomes determined in part by schooling are influenced by measured early family environments and latent capabilities (cognitive, noncognitive and health). We show that family background characteristics, and cognitive, noncognitive, and health endowments developed by age 10, are important determinants of labor market and health disparities at age 30. Not properly accounting for personality traits overestimates the importance of cognitive ability in determining adult health. Selection on factors determined early in life explains more than half of the observed difference by education in poor health, depression, and obesity. Education has an important causal effect in explaining differences in many adult outcomes and healthy behaviors. We uncover significant gender differences. We go beyond the current literature which typically estimates mean effects to compute distributions of treatment effects. We show how the health returns to education can vary among individuals who are similar with respect to their observed characteristics, and how a mean effect can hide gains and losses for different individuals. Our research highlights the important role played by the early years in producing health.
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Educational attainment is an important correlate of many social, economic, and health outcomes.
“Educational attainment (EA) is moderately heritable1 and an important correlate of many social, economic, and health outcomes2,3.”
From Gene discovery and polygenic prediction from a genome-wide association study of educational attainment in 1.1 million individuals (2018) · cites this paper as [2]
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Cites
The effects of cognitive and noncognitive abilities on labor market outcomes and social behavior
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Self-citationChild and adolescent mental health worldwide: evidence for action
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Self-citationUnderstanding differences in health behaviors by education
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Child and adolescent mental health worldwide: evidence for action
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Self-citationEpigenetic clock analysis of diet, exercise, education, and lifestyle factors
Quach, A., Levine, M. E., Tanaka, T., Lu, A. T., Chen, B. H., Ferrucci, L., Ritz, B., Bandinelli, S., Neuhouser, M. L., Beasley, J. M., et al. (2017) · Aging · doi:10.18632/aging.101168 · Cited by 801 · see citing works
Personality Psychology and Economics
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The economic impact of subthreshold and clinical childhood mental disorders
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Marques, A. H., Oliveira, P. A., Scomparini, L. B., Silva, U. M. R. E., Silva, A. C., Doretto, V., Medeiros Filho, M. V. D., & Scivoletto, S. (2015) · Frontiers in Psychiatry · doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2015.00102 · Cited by 13 · see citing works
- Authors
- Conti, G., Heckman, J., & Urzua, S.
- Affiliations
- University of Chicago (US)
- Department of Economics and Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University, Handerson Hall, 2001 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL 60208.
- Venue
- American Economic Review
- Publisher
- American Economic Association
- Published
- 2010-05-01
- Volume
- 100
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 234-238
- ISSN
- 0002-8282 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3985402
- OpenAlex
- W2143815327
- Cited by
- 570
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2026: 20 · 2025: 34 · 2024: 34 · 2023: 36 · 2022: 58 · 2021: 53 · 2020: 47 · 2019: 31 · 2018: 46 · 2017: 39 · 2016: 48 · 2015: 39 · 2014: 21 · 2013: 24 · 2012: 16
- FWCI
- 65.32
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- American Economic Review (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01HD054702)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Intergenerational and Educational Inequality Studies
- Social Sciences › Health › Health disparities and outcomes
- Social Sciences › Education › School Choice and Performance
- Keywords
- returns to education, health disparities, cognitive ability, non-cognitive skills, personality traits, family background, early childhood, health behavior, depression, obesity, labor market outcomes, gender differences, distributional treatment effects
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Cognition, Educational Status, Female, Humans, Male, Sex Factors, Smoking, Socioeconomic Factors, Health Status Disparities, Social Determinants of Health
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