The Expansion of Higher Education and Variation in the Education-Health Gradient in the US

• In Event: 4403 - Inequalities in the Health Returns to Education

Abstract

In the United States, a period of rapid expansion of higher education began in the mid-1940s and continued through the mid-1970s. The expansion in higher education provided more opportunities for people to attend universities and ultimately complete degrees and thus likely contributed to improvements in population health. Recent studies, however, have identified heterogeneous effects of education on health with some subgroups benefiting more or less than other subgroups from a higher education degree. This study explores an additional potential source of heterogeneity – whether people who likely obtained degrees due to the expansion of higher education benefited more or less with respect to health than people who would have obtained degrees regardless of the expansion. The analysis, rooted in a counterfactual perspective, draws on data from the General Social Survey that spans birth cohorts who came of age just before and just after the main period of expansion. Results reveal that people who likely obtained degrees because of expansion experience better health outcomes than people who came of age before expansion who likely would have earned a degree had they come of age after expansion. People who likely would have obtained a degree regardless of expansion do not experience significantly better health than earlier degree earners.

Authors

• Robert T. Frase, Purdue University

• Shawn Bauldry, Purdue University