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The effect of education on health: Evidence from the 1997 compulsory schooling reform in Turkey

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  • Baltagi, Badi H.
  • Flores-Lagunes, Alfonso
  • Karatas, Haci M.
Abstract
This paper analyzes the relationship between education and health outcomes using a natural experiment in Turkey. The compulsory schooling increased from 5 to 8 years in 1997. This increase was accompanied by a massive construction of classrooms and recruitment of teachers in a differential rate across regions. As in previous studies, we confirm that the 1997 reform substantially increased education in Turkey. Using the number of new middle school class openings per 1000 children as an intensity measure for the 1997 reform, we find that, on average, one additional middle school class increases the probability of completion of 8 years or more of schooling by about 7.1 percentage points. We use this exogenous increase in the educational attainment to investigate the impact of education on body mass index, obesity, smoking behavior, and self-rated health, as well as the effect of maternal education on the infant's well-being. Using ordinary least squares, we find that there is a statistically significant favorable effect of education on health outcomes and behavior. However, this relationship becomes insignificant when we account for the endogeneity of education and health by instrumenting education with exogenous variations generated by the 1997 reform and the accompanying middle school class openings. The insignificance of the health effect may be due to lack of statistical power in our data, or to the fact that this policy affects only relatively low levels of schooling and the health effects of education need to be examined at higher levels of schooling.

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  • Baltagi, Badi H. & Flores-Lagunes, Alfonso & Karatas, Haci M., 2019. "The effect of education on health: Evidence from the 1997 compulsory schooling reform in Turkey," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 205-221.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:regeco:v:77:y:2019:i:c:p:205-221
    DOI: 10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2019.05.001
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    Cited by:

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    2. Yusuf Emre Akgunduz & Pelin Akyol & Abdurrahman B. Aydemir & Murat Demirci & Murat G. Kirdar, 2023. "Maternal Education and Early Child Development: The Roles of Parental Support for Learning, Learning Materials, and Father Characteristics," Koç University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum Working Papers 2305, Koc University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum.
    3. Burhan Can Karahasan & Fırat Bilgel, 2021. "The Topography and Sources of Multidimensional Poverty in Turkey," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 154(2), pages 413-445, April.
    4. Tatjana Begerow & Hendrik Jürges, 2022. "Does compulsory schooling affect health? Evidence from ambulatory claims data," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 23(6), pages 953-968, August.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Health; Education; Compulsory schooling; Body mass index; Obesity; Smoking; Self-rated health; Maternal education; Infant's well-being; Turkey;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C26 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Instrumental Variables (IV) Estimation
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy

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