“Does Education Matter? Tests from Extensions of Compulsory Schooling in England and Wales 1919-22, 1947, and 1972”, Gregory Clark, Neil Cummins2020-09-01 (economics, sociology; backlinks)⁠:

Schooling and social outcomes correlate strongly. But are these connections causal? Previous papers for England using compulsory schooling to identify causal effects have produced conflicting results. Some found substantial effects of schooling on adult longevity and on earnings, others found no effects.

Here we measure the consequence of extending compulsory schooling in England to ages 14, 15 and 16 in the years 1919–22, 1947 and 1972. From administrative data these increases in compulsory schooling added 0.43, 0.60 and 0.43 years of education to the affected cohorts. We estimate the effects of these increases in schooling for each cohort on measures of adult longevity, on dwelling values in 1999 (an index of lifetime incomes), and on the social characteristics of the places where the affected cohorts died. Since we have access to all the vital registration records, and a nearly complete sample of the 1999 electoral register, we find with high precision that all the schooling extensions:

failed to increase adult longevity (as had been found previously for the 1947 and 1972 extensions), dwelling values, or the social status of the communities people die in.

Compulsory schooling ages 14–16 had no effect, at the cohort level, on social outcomes in England.

[Keywords: education, human capital]

See Also:

• The Causal Effects of Education on Health, Mortality, Cognition, Well-being, and Income in the UK Biobank

• Education and adult health: Is there a causal effect?

• Does Attendance in Private Schools Predict Student Outcomes at Age 15? Evidence From a Longitudinal Study

• Can Schools Change Religious Attitudes? Evidence from German State Reforms of Compulsory Religious Education

• Influence of young adult cognitive ability and additional education on later-life cognition

• Elusive Longer-Run Impacts of Head Start: Replications Within and Across Cohorts

• The Predicament of Establishing Persistence: Slavery and Human Capital in Africa

• Are school-SES effects statistical artefacts? Evidence from longitudinal population data

• Early Childhood Intervention and Life-Cycle Skill Development: Evidence from Head Start

• Do high school sports build or reveal character? Bounding causal estimates of sports participation

• Proceed With Caution? Parents’ Union Dissolution and Children’s Educational Achievement

• The Effect of Increases in Welfare Mothers’ Education on Their Young Children’s Academic and Behavioral Outcomes: Evidence from the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies Child Outcomes Study

• Slavery and the Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital

• In-Person Schooling and Youth Suicide: Evidence from School Calendars and Pandemic School Closures

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