The Effect of Education on Health Behaviors and Obesity in Turkey: Instrumental Variable Estimates from a Developing Country

This study investigates the causal effect of education on health behaviors and obesity in Turkey, which is a middle-income developing country. Health Surveys of the Turkish Statistical Institute for the years 2008, 2010 and 2012 are used. The health behaviors considered are smoking, alcohol consumption, fruit and vegetable consumption, and exercise, and one health outcome, namely, obesity. We examine the causal effect of education on these health behaviors and on obesity. An instrumental variable approach is used in order to address the endogeneity of education to health behaviors. Educational expansion of the early 1960s is used as the source of exogenous variation in the years of schooling. Our main findings are as follows. Education does not significantly affect the probability of smoking or exercise. As the education level increases, the probability of alcohol consumption and the probability of fruit and vegetable consumption also increase. Nevertheless, some of the initial results change when we perform robustness checks. In order to check the robustness of our results, we narrow the time period around the policy years, since the impact of political and socio-economic developments may change the preferences of the individuals and hence invalidate our results. The evidence from the samples used for robustness checks suggests that there is a negative significant relationship between the probability of smoking and the years of schooling. Therefore, we can state that education can be a relevant policy instrument to fight smoking in Turkey. However, it is not a sufficient policy instrument to combat obesity, unlike in developed countries. This study provides a baseline for further research on the various aspects of health behaviors in Turkey.