Petter Lundborg
Professor
The health-schooling relationship: Evidence from Swedish twins
Author
Summary, in English
Health and education are known to be highly correlated, but the mechanisms behind the relationship are not well understood. In particular, there is sparse evidence on whether adolescent health may influence educational attainment. Using a large registry dataset of twins, including comprehensive information on health status at the age of 18 and later educational attainment, we investigate whether health predicts final education within monozygotic (identical) twin pairs. We find no evidence of this and conclude that health in adolescence may not have an influence on the level of schooling. Instead, raw correlations between adolescent health and schooling appear to be driven by genes and twin-pair-specific environmental factors.
Department/s
- Department of Economics
- Centre for Economic Demography
Publishing year
2016
Language
English
Pages
1191-1215
Publication/Series
Journal of Population Economics
Volume
29
Issue
4
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
Springer
Topic
- Economics
Keywords
- TwinsTwin-fixed effects
- Education
- Health Specific conditions
- I10
- I24
- I21
- I14
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 0933-1433