Long‐lasting health effects of Soviet education
Joan Costa‐Font & Anna Nicińska
Abstract
Education systems serve various purposes, including the enhancement of later‐life health, though effects can differ by sociopolitical regime. This paper examines the effect of communist education, which exposed children to a distinct curriculum and ideological content, on later‐life health. We exploit a novel dataset that collects information on compulsory education reforms in several European countries, with different cohorts exposed and unexposed to Soviet communist education. Using a difference‐in‐differences (DiD) design, we show that while the extension of compulsory education improved some relevant measures of health, communist education encompassed an additional health‐enhancing effect. We document that the effect remains robust when using staggered DiD approaches and various robustness tests, and that it is explained by the priority given to physical education in the school curricula, together with an increased likelihood of marriage.
Evidence weight
Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40
| F · citation impact | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
| M · momentum | 0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07 |
| V · venue signal | 0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03 |
| R · text relevance † | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.