The Causal Effect of Education on Health: What is the Role of Health Behaviors?Giorgio Brunello, Margherita Fort, Nicole Schneeweis and Rudolf Winter-Ebmer No 2011-17, NRN working papers from The Austrian Center for Labor Economics and the Analysis of the Welfare State, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria Abstract: We study the contribution of health-related behaviors to the health-education gradient by distinguishing between short-run and long-run mediating effects: while in the former only current or lagged behaviors are taken into account, in the latter we consider the entire history of behaviors. We use an empirical approach that addresses the endogeneity of education and behaviors in the health production function. Focusing on self-reported poor health as our health outcome, we find that education has a protective effect for European males and females aged 50+. We also find that the mediating effects of health behaviors - measured by smoking, drinking, exercising and the body mass index - account in the short run for 17% to 31% and in the long run for 23% to 45% of the entire effect of education on health, depending on gender. Keywords: Health; education; health behaviors; Europe. (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:jku:nrnwps:2011_17 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in NRN working papers from The Austrian Center for Labor Economics and the Analysis of the Welfare State, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria Contact information at EDIRC. |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.