Does Schooling Affect Health Behavior? Evidence from the Educational Expansion in Western Germany

Hendrik Jürges (), Steffen Reinhold () and Martin Salm
Additional contact information
Hendrik Jürges: University of Mannheim
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Hendrik Juerges

No 4330, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: During the postwar period German states pursued policies to increase the share of young Germans obtaining a university entrance diploma (Abitur) by building more academic track schools, but the timing of educational expansion differed between states. This creates exogenous variation in the availability of higher education, which allows estimating the causal effect of education on health behaviors. Using the number of academic track schools in a state as an instrumental variable for years of schooling, we investigate the causal effect of schooling on health behavior such as smoking and related outcomes such as obesity. We find large negative effects of education on smoking. These effects can mostly be attributed to reductions in starting rates rather than increases in quitting rates. We find no causal effect of education on reduced overweight and obesity.

Keywords: education; smoking; obesity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 I20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31 pages
Date: 2009-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-hea, nep-lab and nep-mic
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Published - published in: Economics of Education Review, 2011, 30 (5), 862-872

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp4330.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Does schooling affect health behavior? Evidence from the educational expansion in Western Germany (2011)
Working Paper: Does Schooling Affect Health Behavior? Evidence from Educational Expansion in Western Germany (2009)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4330

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().