O efeito da educação sobre o estado de saúde individual no Brasil

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2008

RESUMO

The purpose of the thesis is to analyze the relation existent between education and individual health for an adult population in Brazil. More specifically, we intend to evaluate if there is any causality between education and health, as well as improving the understanding of the reasons behind such causality. Despite the existence of a large volume of international research on health economics which put the said relationship in evidence, This theme, in spite of the high number of international works in economics health, it has been a little studied in Brazil. In an encompassing sense, the relationship between education and health can occur through at least three causal links: from education to the health; from the health to education; or through a third variable affecting both education and the health at the same time, therefore producing a spurious correlation. In the last case, there would be no causality whatsoever between education and the health state. About the effects of education over the health, the main empirical issue raised in recent studies has been: is the bias introduced by the omission of a third variable in the estimation of the health equation sufficient to invalidate the conclusion that education has a causal effect over the health, or to make such effect irrelevant. To answer that question, we use a model in which education is treated as an endogenous variable and the health equation is estimated in two stages. As instrumental variables, we have used the spouses years of schooling, law 5.692 from 1971 and the average supply of teachers per state school in the year when the individual has achieved 7 years of age. Data has been obtained from the PNAD 2003 (the Brazilian household sample survey), as well as from XX Century Statistics, both provided by the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics). The results achieved show that education has indeed a causal effect over the health. Such a result still obtains, with a magnified strength, when we control for the third variable. Evidence has been found that suggests this effect is at least partly related to the relationship existent between education and income levels, as well as to the privileged access to information attained by individuals with more years of schooling. In the last case, however, we do not consider the results to be entirely conclusive.

ASSUNTO(S)

educação brasil teses. economia da saúde brasil teses.

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