Unintended Health Costs of Gender Equalization

In 1980, a few years after the democratization process, Spain raised the minimum working age from 14 to 16, while the compulsory education age remained at 14. This reform changed the within-cohort incentives to remain in the educational system. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we analyze the gender asymmetries in mortality generated by this change. The reform, through its effects on education, decreased mortality at ages 14-29 among men (6.4%) and women (8.9%), mainly from the reduction in deaths due to traffic accidents. However, the reform also increased mortality for prime-age women (30-45) by 7%. This last effect is driven by increases in HIV mortality, as well as by diseases related to the nervous and circulatory system. We show that health habits of women deteriorated as a consequence of the reform, but this was not the case for men. The gender differences in the impact of education on smoking and drinking are driven by the gender equalization process that the affected women were experiencing when the reform took place. All in all, these patterns help explain the narrowing age gap in life expectancy between women and men in many developed countries while, at the same time, they provide important policy implications for middle income countries that are undergoing those gender equalization process right now.