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The Health Returns to Education - What can we learn from Twins?

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Author Info
Petter Lundborg () (Free University Amsterdam)

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Abstract

This paper estimates the health returns to education, using data on identical twins. I adopt a twin-differences strategy in order to obtain estimates that are not biased by unobserved family background and genetic traits that may affect both education and health. I further investigate to what extent within-twin-pair differences in schooling correlates with within-twin-pair differences in early life health and parent-child relations. The results suggest a causal effect of education on health. Higher educational levels are found to be positively related to self-reported health but negatively related to the number of chronic conditions. Lifestyle factors, such as smoking and overweight, are found to contribute little to the education/health gradient. I am also able to rule out occupational hazards and health insurance coverage as explanations for the gradient. In addition, I find no evidence of heterogenous effects of education by parental education. Finally, the results suggest that factors that may vary within twin pairs, such as birth weight, early life health, parental treatment and relation with parents, do not predict within-twin pair differences in schooling, lending additional credibility to my estimates and to the general vailidy of using a twin-differences design to study the returns to education.

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Paper provided by Tinbergen Institute in its series Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers with number 08-027/3.

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Date of creation: 2008
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Handle: RePEc:dgr:uvatin:20080027

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Web page: http://www.tinbergen.nl/

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Related research
Keywords: health production; education; schooling; twins; siblings; returns to education; ability bias;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Production
I11 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Analysis of Health Care Markets
J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped
J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
C41 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Duration Analysis

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References listed on IDEAS
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  29. John Bound & Gary Solon, 1998. "Double Trouble: On the Value of Twins-Based Estimation of the Return to Schooling," NBER Working Papers 6721, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
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