The Causal Effects of Education on Adult Health, Mortality and Income: Evidence from Mendelian Randomization and the Raising of the School Leaving Age
Open accessAbstract
We compare estimates of the effects of education on health and health behaviour using two different instrumental variables in the UK Biobank data. One is based on a conventional natural experiment while the other, known as Mendelian randomization (MR), is based on genetic variants. The natural experiment exploits a compulsory schooling reform in the UK in 1972 which involved raising the minimum school leaving age (RoSLA). MR exploits perturbations of germline genetic variation associated with educational attainment, which occur at conception. It has been widely used in epidemiology and clinical sciences.Under monotonicity, each IV identifies a LATE, with potentially different sets of compliers. The RoSLA affected the amount of education for those at the lower end of the ability distribution whereas MR affects individuals across the entire distribution. We find that estimates using each approach are remarkably congruent for a wide range of health outcomes. Effect sizes of additional years of education thus seem to be similar across the education distribution. Our study corroborates the usefulness of MR as a source of instrumental variation in education.
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There is clear evidence from both MR and the natural experiment of an increase in the school leaving age that an increase in the number of years in education has a causal protective effect on health behaviours such as smoking.
“For example, there is clear evidence from both MR and the natural experiment of an increase in the school leaving age that an increase in the number of years in education has a causal protective effect on health behaviours such as smoking.156–160”
From Mendelian randomization (2022) · cites this paper as [157]
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- Authors
- Davies, N. M., Dickson, M., Davey Smith, G., Windmeijer, F., & van den Berg, G. J.
- Affiliations
- University of Bristol (GB)
- Institute for Fiscal Studies (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Davies, Neil M.
- Venue
- SSRN Electronic Journal
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2019
- ISSN
- 1556-5068 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2968378263
- Cited by
- 12
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2025: 2 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 1
- Type
- posted content
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Locations
- SSRN Electronic Journal (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- Economic and Social Research Council (ES/N000757/1)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Intergenerational and Educational Inequality Studies
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Genetic Associations and Epidemiology
- Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Statistics and Probability › Advanced Causal Inference Techniques
- Keywords
- education, adult health, mortality, income, school leaving age, compulsory education reform, Mendelian randomization, genetic variants, instrumental variables, natural experiment, UK Biobank, health behavior, causal effects of education
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