The Effects of Education on Mortality: Evidence Using College Expansions
Presented by:
Hamid Noghanibehambari
Center for Demography of Health and Aging
University of Wisconsin - Madison
Wednesday, November 3, 2021
12:00 pm-1:30 pm
Taylor-Hibbard Seminar Room (Rm103)
Online - https://go.wisc.edu/esfdvx
Background and Research Question: The benefits of education can go beyond its labor market returns including crime (Lochner and Moretti, 2004), voting behavior (Dee, 2004), smoking behavior (Tenn et al., 2010), health at birth of the next generation (Currie and Moretti, 2003), obesity and health (Conti et al., 2014), and mortality (Lleras- Muney, 2005). Meghir, Palme, and Simenova (2018): increases in years of compulsory education in Sweden across municipalities did not have any effect on life expectancy and mortality. Albouy and Lequien (2009): increases in minimum school leaving age in France did not reveal any gain in life expectancy and reductions in mortality. Buckles et al. (2016): the deferment of Vietnam war draft for college students generate incentive for men to attend college. In the long run, this draft-avoidance behavior has reduced their mortality rate. The gap in the literature: To explore the long run benefits of college openings in local area during adolescence on old age Contribution First, this is the first study to link the construction of new colleges on education and later-life mortality Second, while similar papers have used longitudinal data with limited observations, our new longitudinal dataset provides millions of observations which significantly adds power to our statistical tests. Moreover, the increased sample size enables a wide range of heterogeneity analysis by cohort, place, and demographic
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