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The Health Returns to Education: What Can We Learn from Twins?

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Author Info
Lundborg, Petter () (Free University of Amsterdam)
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 validity of using a twin-differences design to study the returns to education.

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Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number 3399.

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Length: 35 pages
Date of creation: Mar 2008
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Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3399

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

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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  1. Miller, Paul & Mulvey, Charles & Martin, Nick, 2005. "Birth weight and schooling and earnings: estimates from a sample of twins," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 86(3), pages 387-392, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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    Other versions:
  3. Petter Lundborg & Bj–rn Lindgren, 2004. "Do They Know What They are Doing? Risk Perceptions and Smoking Behaviour Among Swedish Teenagers," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 28(3), pages 261-286, 05. [Downloadable!]
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    Other versions:
  6. Shin-Yi Chou & Jin-Tan Liu & Michael Grossman & Theodore J. Joyce, 2007. "Parental Education and Child Health: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Taiwan," NBER Working Papers 13466, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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    Other versions:
  18. Donald S. Kenkel & Dean R. Lillard & Alan D. Mathios, 2006. "The Roles of High School Completion and GED Receipt in Smoking and Obesity," NBER Working Papers 11990, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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