Scandinavian Working Papers in Economics

Working Paper Series,
Research Institute of Industrial Economics

No 992: Effects of Compulsory Schooling on Mortality: Evidence from Sweden

Martin Fischer (), Martin Karlsson and Therese Nilsson ()
Additional contact information
Martin Fischer: University of Duisburg-Essen, Postal: and RGS Econ
Martin Karlsson: University of Duisburg-Essen, Postal: and University of Oslo
Therese Nilsson: Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN), Postal: and Lund University

Abstract: Theoretically, there are several reasons to expect education to have a positive effect on health and empirical research suggests that education can be an important health determinant. However, it has not yet been established whether education and health are indeed causally related, and the effects found in previous studies may be partially attributable to methodological weaknesses. Moreover, existing evidence on the education-health relationship using information of schooling reforms for identification, generally use information from fairly recent reforms implying that health outcomes are observed only over a limited time period. This paper examines the effect of education on mortality using information on a national roll-out of a reform leading to one extra year of compulsory schooling in Sweden. In 1936, the national government made a seventh school year compulsory; however, the implementation was decided at the school district level, and the reform was implemented over a period of 12 years. Taking advantage of the variation in the timing of the implementation across school districts, by using county-level proportions of reformed districts, census data and administrative mortality data, we find that the extra compulsory school year reduced mortality. In fact, the mortality reduction is discernible already before the age of 30 and then grows in magnitude until the age of 55–60.

Keywords: Returns to schooling; Education Reform; Mortality

JEL-codes: I12; I18; I21

29 pages, December 3, 2013

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