Does More Schooling Reduce Hospitalization and Delay Mortality?

Schooling generally is positively associated with better health-related outcomes, e.g. less hospitalization and later mortality. But these associations do not measure whether schooling causes better health-related outcomes. Schooling may be proxying in part for unobserved endowments including family background and genetics that both are correlated with schooling and have direct causal effects on these outcomes. This study addresses the schooling-health-gradient issue with twins methodology, using rich Danish Twins Registry data linked to population-based registries to minimize random and systematic measurement error biases. It finds (1) strong significantly negative associations between schooling and hospitalization and mortality but (2) generally no causal effects of schooling.