IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jhecon/v58y2018icp76-89.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Children’s education and parental old age survival – Quasi-experimental evidence on the intergenerational effects of human capital investment

Author

Listed:
  • De Neve, Jan-Walter
  • Fink, Günther

Abstract

While a large literature has investigated the role of parental human capital on children’s well-being, relatively little is known regarding the effects of human capital investment in children on long run outcomes of parents. In this study we explore the human capital variations created by the 1974 Tanzania education reform to estimate the effect of children’s primary schooling attainment on parental survival. Using 5,026,315 census records from 1988, 2002, and 2012, we show that the 1974 reform resulted in an additional 1.1 years (31%) of educational attainment among exposed cohorts. Using the reform as instrument for child education we find that each additional year of primary schooling in children resulted in a 3.7 percentage point reduction (p < .001) in the probability of maternal death, and a 0.8 percentage point reduction (p = .011) in the probability of paternal death by the time exposed child cohorts reach age 50. The results suggest that—at least in a setting where social security coverage is largely absent—a substantial fraction of human capital gains generated by reforms are shared with the parental generation.

Suggested Citation

  • De Neve, Jan-Walter & Fink, Günther, 2018. "Children’s education and parental old age survival – Quasi-experimental evidence on the intergenerational effects of human capital investment," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 76-89.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jhecon:v:58:y:2018:i:c:p:76-89
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2018.01.008
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167629617301996
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jhealeco.2018.01.008?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David E. Bloom & David Canning & Günther Fink, 2010. "Implications of population ageing for economic growth," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 26(4), pages 583-612, Winter.
    2. Becker, Gary S & Tomes, Nigel, 1976. "Child Endowments and the Quantity and Quality of Children," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 84(4), pages 143-162, August.
    3. Esther Friedman & Robert Mare, 2014. "The Schooling of Offspring and the Survival of Parents," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(4), pages 1271-1293, August.
    4. Lundborg, Petter & Majlesi, Kaveh, 2018. "Intergenerational transmission of human capital: Is it a one-way street?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 206-220.
    5. De Neve, Jan-Walter & Harling, Guy, 2017. "Offspring schooling associated with increased parental survival in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 149-157.
    6. De Neve, Jan-Walter & Kawachi, Ichiro, 2017. "Spillovers between siblings and from offspring to parents are understudied: A review and future directions for research," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 56-61.
    7. K. Bolin & B. Lindgren & P. Lundborg, 2008. "Informal and formal care among single‐living elderly in Europe," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 17(3), pages 393-409, March.
    8. Cai, Fang & Giles, John & Meng, Xin, 2006. "How well do children insure parents against low retirement income? An analysis using survey data from urban China," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(12), pages 2229-2255, December.
    9. Kotlikoff, Laurence J & Spivak, Avia, 1981. "The Family as an Incomplete Annuities Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(2), pages 372-391, April.
    10. Paul Bingley & Alessandro Martinello, 2017. "Measurement Error in Income and Schooling and the Bias of Linear Estimators," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 35(4), pages 1117-1148.
    11. Lucila Berniell & Dolores de la Mata & Nieves Valdés, 2013. "Spillovers Of Health Education At School On Parents' Physical Activity," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(9), pages 1004-1020, September.
    12. Adriana Lleras-Muney, 2005. "The Relationship Between Education and Adult Mortality in the United States," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(1), pages 189-221.
    13. Ronald Lee & Andrew Mason (ed.), 2011. "Population Aging and the Generational Economy," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 13816.
    14. Rodrigo Belo & Pedro Ferreira & Rahul Telang, 2016. "Spillovers from Wiring Schools with Broadband: The Critical Role of Children," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(12), pages 3450-3471, December.
    15. Andrew Mason & Ronald Lee, 2011. "Population aging and the generational economy: key findings," Chapters, in: Ronald Lee & Andrew Mason (ed.), Population Aging and the Generational Economy, chapter 1, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Altonji, Joseph G & Hayashi, Fumio & Kotlikoff, Laurence J, 1997. "Parental Altruism and Inter Vivos Transfers: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(6), pages 1121-1166, December.
    17. Cox, Donald, 1987. "Motives for Private Income Transfers," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(3), pages 508-546, June.
    18. Folbre, Nancy, 1994. "Children as Public Goods," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(2), pages 86-90, May.
    19. Iliana Kohler & Hans-Peter Kohler & Philip Anglewicz & Jere Behrman, 2012. "Intergenerational Transfers in the Era of HIV/AIDS: Evidence from Rural Malawi," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 27(27), pages 775-834.
    20. Zachary Zimmer & Albert I. Hermalin & Hui-Sheng Lin, 2002. "Whose Education Counts? The Added Impact of Adult-Child Education on Physical Functioning of Older Taiwanese," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 57(1), pages 23-32.
    21. Susanne M. Schennach, 2016. "Recent Advances in the Measurement Error Literature," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 8(1), pages 341-377, October.
    22. Jenny Torssander, 2013. "From Child to Parent? The Significance of Children’s Education for Their Parents’ Longevity," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 50(2), pages 637-659, April.
    23. Lee Lillard & Robert Willis, 1997. "Motives for interqenerational transfers: Evidence from Malaysia," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 34(1), pages 115-134, February.
    24. Lucas, Robert E B & Stark, Oded, 1985. "Motivations to Remit: Evidence from Botswana," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(5), pages 901-918, October.
    25. Jane Fortson, 2008. "The gradient in sub-saharan Africa: Socioeconomic status and HIV/AIDS," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 45(2), pages 303-322, May.
    26. Ilyana Kuziemko, 2014. "Human Capital Spillovers in Families: Do Parents Learn from or Lean on Their Children?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(4), pages 755-786.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ning Wei & Dingqiang Sun, 2023. "Children’s education and parents’ dietary nutrient intake: an empirical study based on rural China," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-13, December.
    2. Liu, Chang & Eriksson, Tor & Yi, Fujin, 2021. "Offspring migration and nutritional status of left-behind older adults in rural China," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 41(C).
    3. Jenjira J Yahirun & Connor M Sheehan & Krysia N Mossakowski & Deborah Carr, 2020. "Depression in Later Life: The Role of Adult Children’s College Education for Older Parents’ Mental Health in the United States," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 75(2), pages 389-402.
    4. Ning Wei & Lülin Zhou & Wenhao Huang, 2022. "Does an upward intergenerational educational spillover effect exist? The effect of children’s education on Chinese parents’ health," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 69-89, March.
    5. Jiang, Nan & Kaushal, Neeraj, 2020. "How children's education affects caregiving: Evidence from parent’s last years of life," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    6. Elisabeth Artmann & Hessel Oosterbeek & Bas van der Klaauw, 2022. "Do Doctors Improve the Health Care of Their Parents? Evidence from Admission Lotteries," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 164-184, July.
    7. Lei, Lei & Yu, Dandan & Zhou, Yang, 2023. "Better educated children, better Internet-connected elderly parents," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(4).
    8. Everding, Jakob, 2019. "Heterogeneous spillover effects of children's education on parental mental health," hche Research Papers 18, University of Hamburg, Hamburg Center for Health Economics (hche).
    9. Luisa K Werner & Jan Jabbarian & Moubassira Kagoné & Shannon McMahon & Julia Lemp & Aurélia Souares & Günther Fink & Jan-Walter De Neve, 2019. "“Because at school, you can become somebody” – The perceived health and economic returns on secondary schooling in rural Burkina Faso," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(12), pages 1-15, December.
    10. Yanna Ma & Zhanli Ma & Moqin Yang, 2022. "Does Adult Children’s Education Increase Parents’ Longevity in China?," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(23), pages 1-15, November.
    11. Pei, Yaolin & Cong, Zhen & Wu, Bei, 2020. "Education, adult children's education, and depressive symptoms among older adults in rural China," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 253(C).
    12. Cui, Ying & Liu, Hong & Zhao, Liqiu, 2021. "Protective effect of adult children's education on parental survival in China: Gender differences and underlying mechanisms," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 277(C).
    13. Cai, Weicheng & Zhou, Yi, 2022. "Men smoke less under the COVID-19 closure policies: The role of altruism," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 306(C).
    14. Ma, Mingming, 2019. "Does children's education matter for parents’ health and cognition? Evidence from China," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 222-240.
    15. Cornelissen, Thomas & Dang, Thang, 2022. "The multigenerational impacts of educational expansion: Evidence from Vietnam," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    16. Youlu Zhang & Li Zhang & Fulian Li & Liqian Deng & Jiaoli Cai & Linyue Yu, 2022. "Offspring Education and Parents’ Health Inequality in China: Evidence from Spillovers of Education Reform," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(4), pages 1-26, February.
    17. Nan Jiang, 2019. "Adult Children’s Education and Later-Life Health of Parents in China: The Intergenerational Effects of Human Capital Investment," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 145(1), pages 257-278, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. De Neve, Jan-Walter & Kawachi, Ichiro, 2017. "Spillovers between siblings and from offspring to parents are understudied: A review and future directions for research," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 56-61.
    2. Nan Jiang, 2019. "Adult Children’s Education and Later-Life Health of Parents in China: The Intergenerational Effects of Human Capital Investment," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 145(1), pages 257-278, August.
    3. Cornelissen, Thomas & Dang, Thang, 2022. "The multigenerational impacts of educational expansion: Evidence from Vietnam," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    4. Youlu Zhang & Li Zhang & Fulian Li & Liqian Deng & Jiaoli Cai & Linyue Yu, 2022. "Offspring Education and Parents’ Health Inequality in China: Evidence from Spillovers of Education Reform," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(4), pages 1-26, February.
    5. Ma, Mingming, 2019. "Does children's education matter for parents’ health and cognition? Evidence from China," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 222-240.
    6. De Neve, Jan-Walter & Harling, Guy, 2017. "Offspring schooling associated with increased parental survival in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 149-157.
    7. Ning Wei & Lülin Zhou & Wenhao Huang, 2022. "Does an upward intergenerational educational spillover effect exist? The effect of children’s education on Chinese parents’ health," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 69-89, March.
    8. Collin F. Payne & Luca Maria Pesando & Hans‐Peter Kohler, 2019. "Private Intergenerational Transfers, Family Structure, and Health in a sub‐Saharan African Context," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 45(1), pages 41-80, March.
    9. Cui, Ying & Liu, Hong & Zhao, Liqiu, 2021. "Protective effect of adult children's education on parental survival in China: Gender differences and underlying mechanisms," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 277(C).
    10. Lundborg, Petter & Majlesi, Kaveh, 2018. "Intergenerational transmission of human capital: Is it a one-way street?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 206-220.
    11. Cheolsung Park, 2014. "Why do children transfer to their parents? Evidence from South Korea," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 12(3), pages 461-485, September.
    12. Yanna Ma & Zhanli Ma & Moqin Yang, 2022. "Does Adult Children’s Education Increase Parents’ Longevity in China?," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(23), pages 1-15, November.
    13. Yahirun, Jenjira J. & Sheehan, Connor M. & Hayward, Mark D., 2017. "Adult children's education and changes to parents' physical health in Mexico," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 181(C), pages 93-101.
    14. Jiang, Nan & Kaushal, Neeraj, 2020. "How children's education affects caregiving: Evidence from parent’s last years of life," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    15. Li, Yaoyue & Wang, Guixin & Li, Guofeng, 2021. "Educational attainment of offspring and obesity among older adults in China," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 286(C).
    16. Lei, Lei & Yu, Dandan & Zhou, Yang, 2023. "Better educated children, better Internet-connected elderly parents," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(4).
    17. Nikolov, Plamen & Adelman, Alan, 2019. "Do private household transfers to the elderly respond to public pension benefits? Evidence from rural China," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 14(C).
    18. Francois-Charles Wolff & Seymour Spilerman & Claudine Attias-Donfut, 2005. "Do Parents Help More their Less Well-Off Children? Evidence from a Sample of Migrants to France," Microeconomics 0504001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Lee, Sang-Hyop & Mason, Andrew, 2007. "Who gains from the demographic dividend? Forecasting income by age," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 603-619.
    20. Frank A. Sloan & Harold H. Zhang & Jingshu Wang, 2002. "Upstream Intergenerational Transfers," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 69(2), pages 363-380, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Education; Old age survival; Intergenerational; Natural experiment; Tanzania;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I15 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Economic Development
    • I26 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Returns to Education
    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination
    • N37 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Africa; Oceania

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jhecon:v:58:y:2018:i:c:p:76-89. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505560 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.