RUI: Race, Gender, and the Correlation Between Schooling and Health

健康经济学家普遍认为，在不同的样本中，随着时间的推移，受教育年限与健康之间存在着持久的经验关联。然而，对于为什么会出现这种联系，有几种解释。一种解释是，教育赋予人们更多的知识和技能，使他们能够从事预防医学或更广泛地使用医疗保健，这有直接的影响。另一个原因是，学校教育通过允许获得安全的工作、不鼓励吸烟、鼓励使用安全带和锻炼来增强健康。其他人指出，儿童或青春期健康状况不佳可能会导致教育投资减少。最后，有人认为，时间折扣率等未观察到的变量是高教育水平和良好健康的“真正”原因，增加教育并不会导致更好的健康或现有健康状况的缓慢恶化。该项目将开发模型，除了比较不同性别和种族的就学健康回报率外，还将对其中许多假设进行检验。该项目使用了四个大型国家数据集：国家健康和营养检查调查(NHANESI)I和II、NHANESI流行病学跟踪调查和收入动态小组研究。将使用几个与健康相关的因变量：血压、吸烟、体重和过早死亡。估计技术将酌情考虑到自我选择模型。这项研究将首次关注教育与健康之间的相关性中的种族和性别差异，就像经典研究关注教育经济回报中的性别和种族差异一样。

There is widespread agreement among health economists that there is a persistent empirical association across samples and over time between years of schooling and health. However, there are several explanations about why this association occurs. One explanation is that there is a direct effect with schooling endowing people with greater knowledge and skills to practice preventive medicine or use medical care more widely. Another is that schooling enhances health through allowing access to safe jobs, discouraging smoking and encouraging seat belt use and exercise. Others point to the possibility that poor health in childhood or adolescence results in less investment in schooling. Finally, it is suggested that unobserved variables such as the rate of time discount is the "true" cause of both high levels of schooling and good health and that increased schooling does not lead to better health or slower deterioration of existing health. This project will develop models which will allow for testing of many of these hypotheses in addition to comparing rates of health returns to schooling across gender and race. Four large national data sets are used in the project: National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (NHANESI) I and II, Epidemiological Followup Survey to NHANESI, and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Several dependent variables relating to health will be used: blood pressures, smoking, body mass and early death. The estimation techniques will take into account self selection models, where appropriate. This study will be the first to focus on the race and gender differences in the correlations between schooling and health in the same way that the classic studies focused on the gender and race differences in the financial returns to schooling.