Life Expectancy and Human Capital Investments: Evidence from Maternal Mortality Declines^*

2009/02/01 by Seema Jayachandran, Adriana Lleras-Muney, Adriana Lleras‐Muney · 2 citations
Health Professions · Medicine · Social Sciences · #Global Health Care Issues #Global Maternal and Child Health #Insurance, Mortality, Demography, Risk Management

paper · doi:10.1162/qjec.2009.124.1.349

Abstract

Theory suggests that longer life expectancy encourages educational investment because a longer time horizon increases the value of investments that pay out over time. To estimate the magnitude of this effect, we examine a sudden drop in maternal mortality in Sri Lanka between 1946 and 1953, which sharply increased the life expectancy of girls. We assess whether girls' education relative to boys' increases more in areas with larger maternal mortality declines. We find that for every extra year of life expectancy, literacy increases by 0.7 percentage points (2%) and years of education increase by 0.11 years (3%).

Citations

• Human Capital, Fertility, and Economic Growth

Cited by

• Transition of Son Preference: Evidence From South Korea
• Working life and human capital investment: Causal evidence from a pension reform

Related

• The Effect of Life Expectancy on Fertility, Saving, Schooling and Economic Growth: Theory and Evidence*
• Unequal before death: The effect of paternal education on children’s old-age mortality in the United States
• Mothers facing greater environmental adversity experience increased costs of reproduction
• The Determinants of Mortality
• Education as a Long‐Term Investment: The Decisive Role of Age in the Education‐Growth Relationship