The Unseen Divide: How Pandemic Health Spending Boosted Unequal Learning Outcomes

• In Event: 30620 - Section on Inequality, Poverty, and Mobility Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 2: Educational Trajectories and Inequality

Abstract

After COVID-19, many countries faced controversies over reducing pandemic prevention and healthcare expenditures. However, their impact on education has lacked systematic evaluation. Healthcare spending not only mitigates the negative health impact from the pandemic, but may also help alleviate learning loss caused by school closure. Existing research has mostly focused on national governance and health inequality, with little discussion on positive spillover effects of healthcare investment toward educational outcomes. This study combines the OECD’s 2022 PISA assessment with national-level data to analyze the impact of government healthcare spending on secondary school students’ academic performance, covering 62 countries or regions and approximately 380,000 students. A random-effects model analysis reveals that, after controlling for school closure days, an increase in the proportion of government healthcare spending (relative to education spending) in 2021, led to a significant improvement in students' academic performance in 2022. Additionally, pandemic response effectiveness—measured by indicators such as the infection rate during the first 300 days—was negatively correlated with test scores. Further analysis shows that healthcare spending positively impacts students' math, reading, and science scores, while pandemic response effectiveness mainly affects math and science scores, with a weaker association with reading. Moreover, while healthcare spending enhances overall academic performance, it benefits students from higher socioeconomic backgrounds more significantly, widening educational inequality during the pandemic. Therefore, healthcare spending not only brings “unseen gains” to school education but also exacerbates an “unseen divide” in academic achievement.

Authors

• Thung-Hong Lin, Academia Sinica

• Chun-Yin Lee, National Chengchi University

• Meng-Hsien Lin, California State University Monterey Bay