The Impact of Education on Health and Health Behavior in a Middle-Income, Low-Education Country

Abstract

Although the impact of education on health is important for economic policy in developing countries, the overwhelming majority of research to identify the health returns to education has been done using data from developed countries. We use data from three waves of a nationally-representative health survey, conducted between 2008 and 2012 in Turkey, and exploit an education reform that increased the mandatory years of schooling from 5 to 8 years in 1997. Using exposure to the reform as an instrument for education, we find that for women ages 18-30, education has no impact on self-reported health, BMI, overweight, obesity, or on the propensity or intensity of smoking. Education does not influence women's daily consumption of fruits, vegetables, or their propensity to get a flu shot either. The same results are obtained for men of the same age group with one exception: education increases men's BMI and the propensity to be overweight and obese. Potential explanations for these findings are provided.

The Causal Effect of Education on Health Behaviors: Evidence from Turkey

“…This result contradicts with those in the developed countries such as Arendt (2005), Kemptner et al (2011), Brunello et al (2013 and Webbink et al (2010) who all find that higher education levels lead to lower ranges of BMI. However our results are in conformity with those of Cesur et al (2014) who focus on a younger age group in Turkey.…”

“…Tansel and Karaoğlan (2015) is devoted to a study of the relationship between education and self-assessed health and several clinical health indicators. Cesur et al (2014) also consider the endogeneity problem of education to health. They restrict the sample to men and women between 18-30 years old, which is a younger age group than our current study.…”

Maternal education and childhood immunization in Turkey

“…Güneş (2015) and Dinçer et al (2014) conclude that maternal education improves children's mortality, birth weight, and height and weight for age. In contrast, Cesur et al (2014) find no impact of education on the probability of getting the flu vaccination or on other health-related behaviors (of adults).…”

“…Consequently, following the reform, the share of students in religious schools fell precipitously, to 2% (Cornell, 2015). An additional motivation for the reform was the ambition to secure Turkey's entry into the EU, and increasing the level of education was seen as an important step in that direction (Cesur et al, 2014;Dulger, 2004aDulger, , 2004b. Importantly, both the desire to restrict religious education and the intention to support Turkey's EU accession were political motivations uncorrelated with the educational or health outcomes in Turkey immediately before the reform.…”

“…In the context of Turkey, Güneş (2015) exploits the variation in the number of classrooms constructed across regions, whereas Dinçer, Kaushal, and Grossman (2014) use the variation in the number of teachers recruited after the change in compulsory education in Turkey in 1997 as a measure of the reform intensity. Cesur, Dursun, and Mocan (2014) investigate the causal impact of education on the propensity to get flu shot for adults. All three studies use exposure to the 1997 compulsory education reform (discussed below) to tease out the effect of education on the outcome of interest.…”