The Association between Health and Education in Australia: Indigenous/non-Indigenous Comparisons

Relative to the rest of the population, Indigenous Australians are disadvantaged across a number of outcomes. Not only is income lower, but so is life expectancy. Furthermore, the incidence of a number of chronic conditions is much higher (especially after controlling for the younger age profile). There are a number of interrelated historic, social and economic reasons for these poorer outcomes, but one important factor is likely to be substantially lower education levels. That is, Indigenous Australians are much less likely to finish high school, and for those that do, less likely go on to university or other studies. This paper looks in an empirical way at the relationship between education and health for Indigenous Australians, comparing it to similar associations for the non-Indigenous population. Using probit model estimates on data from the 2001 National Health Survey, two traditional health outcomes (self-assessed health and chronic conditions) as well as a set of health risk-factors are examined. For all health measures used, those with lower education levels have significantly worse health outcomes. Interestingly, education is found to have a significantly different magnitude of association for some measures across Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.