IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ehbiol/v47y2022ics1570677x22000909.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Education and COVID-19 excess mortality

Author

Listed:
  • Bello, Piera
  • Rocco, Lorenzo

Abstract

We study the role of education during the COVID-19 epidemic in Italy. We compare excess mortality in 2020 and 2021 compared to the pre-pandemic mortality between municipalities with different shares of educated residents. We find that education initially played a strong protective role, which however quickly faded out. After pondering several alternative explanations, we tentatively interpret this finding as the outcome of the interplay between education, information and public health communication, whose availability and coherence varied along the epidemic.

Suggested Citation

  • Bello, Piera & Rocco, Lorenzo, 2022. "Education and COVID-19 excess mortality," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 47(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ehbiol:v:47:y:2022:i:c:s1570677x22000909
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ehb.2022.101194
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X22000909
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ehb.2022.101194?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 look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde, 2010. "Are Risk Aversion and Impatience Related to Cognitive Ability?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(3), pages 1238-1260, June.
    2. Brandily, Paul & Brébion, Clément & Briole, Simon & Khoury, Laura, 2020. "A Poorly Understood Disease? The Unequal Distribution of Excess Mortality Due to COVID-19 Across French Municipalities," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 15/2020, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
    3. Edward L. Glaeser & Caitlin S. Gorback & Stephen J. Redding, 2020. "How Much Does COVID-19 Increase with Mobility? Evidence from New York and Four Other U.S. Cities," Working Papers 2020-22, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    4. repec:adr:anecst:y:2005:i:79-80:p:25 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Enrico Lavezzo & Elisa Franchin & Constanze Ciavarella & Gina Cuomo-Dannenburg & Luisa Barzon & Claudia Del Vecchio & Lucia Rossi & Riccardo Manganelli & Arianna Loregian & Nicolò Navarin & Davide Aba, 2020. "Suppression of a SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in the Italian municipality of Vo’," Nature, Nature, vol. 584(7821), pages 425-429, August.
    6. Bartscher, Alina Kristin & Seitz, Sebastian & Siegloch, Sebastian & Slotwinski, Michaela & Wehrhöfer, Nils, 2021. "Social capital and the spread of covid-19: Insights from european countries," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    7. Mauro Caselli & Andrea Fracasso & Sergio Scicchitano, 2020. "From the lockdown to the new normal: An analysis of the limitations to individual mobility in Italy following the Covid-19 crisis," Discussion Paper series in Regional Science & Economic Geography 2020-07, Gran Sasso Science Institute, Social Sciences, revised Oct 2020.
    8. David Card, 1992. "Using Regional Variation in Wages to Measure the Effects of the Federal Minimum Wage," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 46(1), pages 22-37, October.
    9. Vincenzo Galasso & Martial Foucault, 2020. "Working during COVID-19: Cross-country evidence from real-time survey data," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 246, OECD Publishing.
    10. Sahil Loomba & Alexandre Figueiredo & Simon J. Piatek & Kristen Graaf & Heidi J. Larson, 2021. "Measuring the impact of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation on vaccination intent in the UK and USA," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 5(3), pages 337-348, March.
    11. Seeun Jung, 2015. "Does education affect risk aversion? Evidence from the British education reform," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(28), pages 2924-2938, June.
    12. Luigi Guiso & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2004. "The Role of Social Capital in Financial Development," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(3), pages 526-556, June.
    13. Guido Tabellini, 2010. "Culture and Institutions: Economic Development in the Regions of Europe," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 8(4), pages 677-716, June.
    14. Aparicio Fenoll, Ainoa & Grossbard, Shoshana, 2020. "Intergenerational residence patterns and Covid-19 fatalities in the EU and the US," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 39(C).
    15. Abel Brodeur & Idaliya Grigoryeva & Lamis Kattan, 2021. "Stay-at-home orders, social distancing, and trust," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(4), pages 1321-1354, October.
    16. Carmine Ornaghi & Mirco Tonin, 2018. "Water Tariffs and Consumers' Inaction," CESifo Working Paper Series 6990, CESifo.
    17. W. Craig Riddell & Xueda Song, 2017. "The Role of Education in Technology Use and Adoption: Evidence from the Canadian Workplace and Employee Survey," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 70(5), pages 1219-1253, October.
    18. Stefano Castriota & Marco Delmastro & Mirco Tonin, 2020. "National or Local? The Demand for News in Italy during COVID-19," BEMPS - Bozen Economics & Management Paper Series BEMPS74, Faculty of Economics and Management at the Free University of Bozen.
    19. Victor Ginsburgh & Glenn Magerman & Ilaria Natali, 2021. "COVID-19 and the role of inequality in French regional departments," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 22(2), pages 311-327, March.
    20. Gregory D. Wozniak, 1987. "Human Capital, Information, and the Early Adoption of New Technology," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 22(1), pages 101-112.
    21. Bisin, Alberto & Moro, Andrea, 2020. "Learning Epidemiology by Doing: The Empirical Implications of a Spatial SIR Model with Behavioral Responses," MPRA Paper 101059, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    22. David Card, 1992. "Using Regional Variation in Wages to Measure the Effects of the Federal Minimum Wage," Working Papers 680, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    23. Adriana Lleras-Muney & Frank R. Lichtenberg, 2010. "Are the More Educated More Likely to Use New Drugs?," NBER Chapters, in: Contributions in Memory of Zvi Griliches, pages 671-696, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    24. Arendt, Jacob Nielsen, 2005. "Does education cause better health? A panel data analysis using school reforms for identification," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 149-160, April.
    25. Durante, Ruben & Guiso, Luigi & Gulino, Giorgio, 2021. "Asocial capital: Civic culture and social distancing during COVID-19," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    26. Vincenzo Galasso & Vincent Pons & Paola Profeta & Michael Becher & Sylvain Brouard & Martial Foucault, 2020. "Gender Differences in COVID-19 Related Attitudes and Behavior: Evidence from a Panel Survey in Eight OECD Countries," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03594437, HAL.
    27. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/30j8b527qi94hpffbv52bsav72 is not listed on IDEAS
    28. George J. Borjas, 2020. "Demographic Determinants of Testing Incidence and COVID-19 Infections in New York City Neighborhoods," NBER Working Papers 26952, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    29. repec:fth:prinin:300 is not listed on IDEAS
    30. Cutler, David M. & Lleras-Muney, Adriana, 2010. "Understanding differences in health behaviors by education," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 1-28, January.
    31. Sean L. Wu & Andrew N. Mertens & Yoshika S. Crider & Anna Nguyen & Nolan N. Pokpongkiat & Stephanie Djajadi & Anmol Seth & Michelle S. Hsiang & John M. Colford & Art Reingold & Benjamin F. Arnold & Al, 2020. "Substantial underestimation of SARS-CoV-2 infection in the United States," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 11(1), pages 1-10, December.
    32. Matteo Sostero & Santo Milasi & John Hurley & Enrique Fernandez-Macias & Martina Bisello, 2020. "Teleworkability and the COVID-19 crisis: a new digital divide?," JRC Working Papers on Labour, Education and Technology 2020-05, Joint Research Centre.
    33. Nicholas W. Papageorge & Matthew V. Zahn & Michèle Belot & Eline Broek-Altenburg & Syngjoo Choi & Julian C. Jamison & Egon Tripodi, 2021. "Socio-demographic factors associated with self-protecting behavior during the Covid-19 pandemic," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(2), pages 691-738, April.
    34. Ornaghi, Carmine & Tonin, Mirco, 2018. "Water Tariffs and Consumers’ Inaction," Discussion Paper Series In Economics And Econometrics 1802, Economics Division, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton.
    35. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/5cmk499mce8lvosvi0jdis0dla is not listed on IDEAS
    36. Philip Verwimp, 2020. "The Spread of COVID-19 in Belgium: a Municipality-Level Analysis," Working Papers ECARES 2020-25, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    37. John M. Barrios & Efraim Benmelech & Yael V. Hochberg & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2020. "Civic Capital and Social Distancing during the Covid-19 Pandemic," NBER Working Papers 27320, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    38. Borgonovi, Francesca & Andrieu, Elodie & Subramanian, S.V., 2021. "The evolution of the association between community level social capital and COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations in the United States," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 278(C).
    39. Gabriella Conti & James Heckman & Sergio Urzua, 2010. "The Education-Health Gradient," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(2), pages 234-238, May.
    40. Antoni Wiliński & Łukasz Kupracz & Aneta Senejko & Grzegorz Chrząstek, 2022. "COVID-19: average time from infection to death in Poland, USA, India and Germany," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 56(6), pages 4729-4746, December.
    41. Thomas Ward & Alexander Johnsen, 2021. "Understanding an evolving pandemic: An analysis of the clinical time delay distributions of COVID-19 in the United Kingdom," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(10), pages 1-15, October.
    42. Nivette, Amy & Ribeaud, Denis & Murray, Aja & Steinhoff, Annekatrin & Bechtiger, Laura & Hepp, Urs & Shanahan, Lilly & Eisner, Manuel, 2021. "Non-compliance with COVID-19-related public health measures among young adults in Switzerland: Insights from a longitudinal cohort study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 268(C).
    43. Kai Hong & Peter A. Savelyev & Kegon T. K. Tan, 2020. "Understanding the Mechanisms Linking College Education with Longevity," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 14(3), pages 371-400.
    44. Callaway, Brantly & Li, Tong, 2023. "Policy evaluation during a pandemic," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 236(1).
    45. Scott Adams, 2002. "Educational Attainment and Health: Evidence from a Sample of Older Adults," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(1), pages 97-109.
    46. Barrios, John M. & Benmelech, Efraim & Hochberg, Yael V. & Sapienza, Paola & Zingales, Luigi, 2021. "Civic capital and social distancing during the Covid-19 pandemic☆," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    47. Daniel J. Benjamin & Sebastian A. Brown & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2013. "Who Is ‘Behavioral’? Cognitive Ability And Anomalous Preferences," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11(6), pages 1231-1255, December.
    48. Caterina Alacevich & Nicolò Cavalli & Osea Giuntella & Raffaele Lagravinese & Francesco Moscone & Catia Nicodemo, 2021. "The presence of care homes and excess deaths during the COVID‐19 pandemic: Evidence from Italy," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(7), pages 1703-1710, July.
    49. Crighton, Eric J. & Elliott, Susan J. & Moineddin, Rahim & Kanaroglou, Pavlos & Upshur, Ross, 2007. "A spatial analysis of the determinants of pneumonia and influenza hospitalizations in Ontario (1992-2001)," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 64(8), pages 1636-1650, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Bello, Piera & Rocco, Lorenzo, 2021. "Education, Information, and COVID-19 Excess Mortality," IZA Discussion Papers 14402, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Abel Brodeur & David Gray & Anik Islam & Suraiya Bhuiyan, 2021. "A literature review of the economics of COVID‐19," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(4), pages 1007-1044, September.
    3. Steven Stillman & Mirco Tonin, 2022. "Communities and testing for COVID-19," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 23(4), pages 617-625, June.
    4. Castriota, Stefano & Rondinella, Sandro & Tonin, Mirco, 2023. "Does social capital matter? A study of hit-and-run in US counties," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 329(C).
    5. Bazzi, Samuel & Fiszbein, Martin & Gebresilasse, Mesay, 2021. "“Rugged individualism” and collective (in)action during the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    6. Bartscher, Alina Kristin & Seitz, Sebastian & Siegloch, Sebastian & Slotwinski, Michaela & Wehrhöfer, Nils, 2021. "Social capital and the spread of covid-19: Insights from european countries," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    7. Bargain, Olivier & Aminjonov, Ulugbek, 2020. "Trust and compliance to public health policies in times of COVID-19," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    8. Martin Lange & Ole Monscheuer, 2022. "Spreading the disease: Protest in times of pandemics," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(12), pages 2664-2679, December.
    9. Paolo Nicola Barbieri & Beatrice Bonini, 2021. "Political orientation and adherence to social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 38(2), pages 483-504, July.
    10. Deopa, Neha & Fortunato, Piergiuseppe, 2021. "Coronagraben in Switzerland: Culture and social distancing in times of COVID-19," GLO Discussion Paper Series 857, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    11. Borsati, Mattia & Nocera, Silvio & Percoco, Marco, 2022. "Questioning the spatial association between the initial spread of COVID-19 and transit usage in Italy," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    12. Heckman, James J. & Humphries, John Eric & Veramendi, Gregory & Urzua, Sergio, 2014. "Education, Health and Wages," IZA Discussion Papers 8027, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Giorgio Brunello & Margherita Fort & Nicole Schneeweis & Rudolf Winter‐Ebmer, 2016. "The Causal Effect of Education on Health: What is the Role of Health Behaviors?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(3), pages 314-336, March.
    14. Mauro Caselli & Andrea Fracasso & Sergio Scicchitano, 2022. "From the lockdown to the new normal: individual mobility and local labor market characteristics following the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 35(4), pages 1517-1550, October.
    15. Durante, Ruben & Guiso, Luigi & Gulino, Giorgio, 2021. "Asocial capital: Civic culture and social distancing during COVID-19," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    16. Aditya Goenka & Lin Liu & Manh-Hung Nguyen, 2021. "Modeling optimal quarantines with waning immunity," Discussion Papers 21-10, Department of Economics, University of Birmingham.
    17. James J. Heckman & John Eric Humphries & Gregory Veramendi, 2018. "The Nonmarket Benefits of Education and Ability," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 12(2), pages 282-304.
    18. Kunz, Johannes S. & Propper, Carol, 2023. "JUE Insight: Is hospital quality predictive of pandemic deaths? Evidence from US counties," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    19. Borisova, Ekaterina & Ivanov, Denis, 2021. "Covid-19 vaccine efficacy and Russian public support for anti-pandemic measures," BOFIT Discussion Papers 09/2021, Bank of Finland, Institute for Economies in Transition.
    20. Fuest, Clemens & Immel, Lea & Neumeier, Florian & Peichl, Andreas, 2023. "Does expert information affect citizens’ attitudes toward Corona policies? Evidence from Germany," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    COVID-19; Education; Excess mortality; Municipality; Parallel trend; Fake news; Public health communication;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I14 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Inequality
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • I26 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Returns to Education
    • R00 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General - - - General

    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:ehbiol:v:47:y:2022:i:c:s1570677x22000909. 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/622964 .

    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.