IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp15432.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Reaping the Rewards Later: How Education Improves Old-Age Cognition in South Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Nikolov, Plamen

    (Harvard Institute for Quantitative Social Science)

  • Yeh, Steve

    (Columbia University)

Abstract

Cognitive performance in late adulthood is critical for better welfare and understanding the causes of human capital depreciation in old age is increasingly crucial in aging societies. Using data from South Africa, we study how early life education affects cognition, a component of human capital critical to decision-making, in late adulthood. We show that an extra year of schooling improves memory and general cognition performance. We detect heterogeneous treatment effects by gender: the effects are stronger among women. We explore mechanisms and show that a more supportive social environment, improved health habits, and reduced stress levels are likely mediators for the beneficial effects of increased educational attainment on old-age cognition.

Suggested Citation

  • Nikolov, Plamen & Yeh, Steve, 2022. "Reaping the Rewards Later: How Education Improves Old-Age Cognition in South Africa," IZA Discussion Papers 15432, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15432
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp15432.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James J. Heckman & Alan B. Krueger, 2005. "Inequality in America: What Role for Human Capital Policies?," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262582600 edited by Benjamin M. Friedman, December.
    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. Nikolov, Plamen & Hossain, Md Shahadath, 2023. "Do pension benefits accelerate cognitive decline in late adulthood? Evidence from rural China," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 205(C), pages 594-617.

    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. Block, Joern H. & Hirschmann, Mirko & Kranz, Tobias & Neuenkirch, Matthias, 2023. "Public family firms and economic inequality across societies," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 19(C).
    2. Plamen Nikolov & Steve Yeh, 2021. "Reaping the Rewards Later: How Education Improves Old-Age Cognition in South Africa," Papers 2109.02177, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2021.
    3. Sebastian Findeisen & Dominik Sachs, 2018. "Education Policies and Taxation without Commitment," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 120(4), pages 1075-1099, October.
    4. Findeisen, Sebastian & Sachs, Dominik, 2015. "Designing efficient college and tax policies," Working Papers 15-09, University of Mannheim, Department of Economics.
    5. Haney, Timothy, 2012. "Off to Market: Neighborhood and Individual Employment Barriers for Women in 21st Century American Cities," SocArXiv 57e4a, Center for Open Science.
    6. Plamen Nikolov & Steve Yeh, 2021. "Reaping the Rewards Later: How Education Improves Old-Age Cognition in South Africa," Working Papers 2021-045, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    7. Ryan Bacic & Angela Zheng, 2024. "Race and the Income‐Achievement Gap," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 62(1), pages 5-23, January.
    8. Chih Ming Tan & Xiao Wang & Xiaobo Zhang, 2019. "It’s All in the Stars: The Chinese Zodiac and the Effects of Parental Investments on Offspring’s Cognitive and Noncognitive Skill Development," Working Paper series 19-10, Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis.
    9. Rendall, Michelle & Parasnis, Jaai & Paterson, Molly, 2022. "Gender, Income, and Numeracy Test Scores," CEPR Discussion Papers 16895, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Raj Chetty & John N. Friedman & Emmanuel Saez & Nicholas Turner & Danny Yagan, 2020. "The Determinants of Income Segregation and Intergenerational Mobility: Using Test Scores to Measure Undermatching," NBER Working Papers 26748, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Martina Viarengo & Ugo Panizza & Enrico Nano, 2021. "A Generation of Italian Economists," CID Working Papers 400, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    12. Ryan Bacic & Angela Zheng, 2022. "Income-Achievement Gaps in Canada," Department of Economics Working Papers 2022-04, McMaster University.
    13. Felipe Barrera-Osorio & Adriana Kugler & Mikko Silliman, 2023. "Hard and Soft Skills in Vocational Training: Experimental Evidence from Colombia," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 37(3), pages 409-436.
    14. Alyssa Schneebaum & Bernhard Rumplmaier & Wilfried Altzinger, 2015. "Gender in intergenerational educational persistence across time and place," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 42(2), pages 413-445, May.
    15. El-Osta, Hisham S., 2011. "The Impact of Human Capital on Farm Operator Household Income," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, vol. 40(1), pages 1-21, April.
    16. Dylan Conger & Mark C. Long, 2010. "Why Are Men Falling Behind? Gender Gaps in College Performance and Persistence," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 627(1), pages 184-214, January.
    17. Findeisen, Sebastian & Sachs, Dominik, 2016. "Education and optimal dynamic taxation: The role of income-contingent student loans," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 1-21.
    18. Urvi Neelakantan & Ivan Vidangos & Felicia Ionescu & Kartik Athreya, 2016. "Investment Opportunities and the Sources of Lifetime Inequality," 2016 Meeting Papers 1177, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    19. Daniela Del Boca & Silvia Pasqua & Simona Suardi, 2016. "Child Care, Maternal Employment, and Children’s School Outcomes. An Analysis of Italian Data," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 32(2), pages 211-229, May.
    20. Samuel Berlinski & Maria Marta Ferreyra & Luca Flabbi & Juan David Martin, 2020. "Child Care Markets, Parental Labor Supply, and Child Development," CHILD Working Papers Series 73 JEL Classification:, Centre for Household, Income, Labour and Demographic Economics (CHILD) - CCA.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    human capital; educational attainment; cognitive performance; developing countries; aging; sub-Saharan Africa;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • F63 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - Economic Development
    • N37 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Africa; Oceania

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:iza:izadps:dp15432. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    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.