English
Español
Resum
We provide new evidence on the causal effect of schooling on different health measures using data from the 2011 cross section of EU-SILC. We exploit quasi-experimental evidence from schooling reforms in Europe that extend the period of compulsory schooling. Our estimation strategy is to use the number of years of compulsory education as an instrument for the number of years of education, where the latter is an explanatory variable to explain adult health. We find that the education level is a strong determinant of adult health. We also find that this effects is mostly concentrated on those individuals who come from large families, the reason being that this is the group mostly affected by the reforms in schooling.