Health literacy and education: evidence from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing

We estimate the causal effect of compulsory schooling on health literacy using data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. We exploit the quasi-experimental setting produced by the UK’s 1944 Education Act. We estimate a positive effect of one additional year of schooling on health literacy among women, no significant effects among men. This result is in line with previous findings about the positive effects of compulsory schooling on own health among women and supports the idea that more schooling might have generated efficiency gains in the health production due to improved health literacy.