Re-examining the relationship between education and adult mental health in the UK: A research note

Vikesh Amin; Jason M. Fletcher; Qiongshi Lu; Jie Song

doi:10.1016/j.econedurev.2023.102354

Re-examining the relationship between education and adult mental health in the UK: A research note

Vikesh Amin, Jason M. Fletcher, Qiongshi Lu, Jie Song

Economics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Previous studies using variation in education arising from compulsory schooling laws have found no causal effects of education on mental health in the UK. We re-examine the relationship between education and mental health in the UK by taking a different approach: sibling fixed-effects with controls for polygenic scores (summary measures of genetic predisposition) for educational attainment and adult depressive symptoms. We find that higher educational attainment is associated with better adult mental health, that sibling controls reduce these associations by ∼40–70% but important associations remain and find evidence for non-monotonic effects. We also find suggestive evidence that education partially “rescues” genetic predictors of poor mental health.

Original language	English
Article number	102354
Journal	Economics of Education Review
Volume	93
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2023.102354
State	Published - Apr 2023

Keywords

Education
Mental health
Siblings fixed-effects
UK

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10.1016/j.econedurev.2023.102354

Cite this

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title = "Re-examining the relationship between education and adult mental health in the UK: A research note",

abstract = "Previous studies using variation in education arising from compulsory schooling laws have found no causal effects of education on mental health in the UK. We re-examine the relationship between education and mental health in the UK by taking a different approach: sibling fixed-effects with controls for polygenic scores (summary measures of genetic predisposition) for educational attainment and adult depressive symptoms. We find that higher educational attainment is associated with better adult mental health, that sibling controls reduce these associations by ∼40–70% but important associations remain and find evidence for non-monotonic effects. We also find suggestive evidence that education partially “rescues” genetic predictors of poor mental health.",

keywords = "Education, Mental health, Siblings fixed-effects, UK",

author = "Vikesh Amin and Fletcher, {Jason M.} and Qiongshi Lu and Jie Song",

note = "Funding Information: Vikesh Amin acknowledges research funding from NIH grant number 1R01HD094011–01 , and Jason Fletcher from NIA grant number RF1AG062765 . The authors gratefully acknowledge use of the facilities of the Center for Demography of Health and Aging at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, funded by NIA Center Grant P30 AG017266 . This research has been conducted using the UK Biobank Resource under Application 57284 . Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2023",

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language = "English",

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AU - Lu, Qiongshi

AU - Song, Jie

N1 - Funding Information: Vikesh Amin acknowledges research funding from NIH grant number 1R01HD094011–01 , and Jason Fletcher from NIA grant number RF1AG062765 . The authors gratefully acknowledge use of the facilities of the Center for Demography of Health and Aging at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, funded by NIA Center Grant P30 AG017266 . This research has been conducted using the UK Biobank Resource under Application 57284 . Publisher Copyright: © 2023

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N2 - Previous studies using variation in education arising from compulsory schooling laws have found no causal effects of education on mental health in the UK. We re-examine the relationship between education and mental health in the UK by taking a different approach: sibling fixed-effects with controls for polygenic scores (summary measures of genetic predisposition) for educational attainment and adult depressive symptoms. We find that higher educational attainment is associated with better adult mental health, that sibling controls reduce these associations by ∼40–70% but important associations remain and find evidence for non-monotonic effects. We also find suggestive evidence that education partially “rescues” genetic predictors of poor mental health.

AB - Previous studies using variation in education arising from compulsory schooling laws have found no causal effects of education on mental health in the UK. We re-examine the relationship between education and mental health in the UK by taking a different approach: sibling fixed-effects with controls for polygenic scores (summary measures of genetic predisposition) for educational attainment and adult depressive symptoms. We find that higher educational attainment is associated with better adult mental health, that sibling controls reduce these associations by ∼40–70% but important associations remain and find evidence for non-monotonic effects. We also find suggestive evidence that education partially “rescues” genetic predictors of poor mental health.

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KW - Mental health

KW - Siblings fixed-effects

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ER -

Re-examining the relationship between education and adult mental health in the UK: A research note

Abstract

Keywords

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