The Relationship Between Education and Adult Mortality in the United States
2004/12/24 by Adriana Lleras-Muney, Adriana Lleras‐Muney · 1,290 citations
Health Professions · Medicine · Social Sciences · #Demography #Economic history #Economics #Gerontology #Global Health Care Issues #Health disparities and outcomes #History #Intergenerational and Educational Inequality Studies #Medicine #Political science #Sociology
paper · doi:10.1111/0034-6527.00329
published in The Review of Economic Studies 72(1), 189-221 (Oxford University Press)
openalex publication_date 2004/12/24 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
Abstract
Prior research has uncovered a large and positive correlation between education and health. This paper examines whether education has a causal impact on health. I follow synthetic cohorts using successive U.S. censuses to estimate the impact of educational attainment on mortality rates. I use compulsory education laws from 1915 to 1939 as instruments for education. The results suggest that education has a causal impact on mortality, and that this effect is perhaps larger than has been previously estimated in the literature. Copyright 2005, Wiley-Blackwell.
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