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Does Education Improve Cognitive Performance Four Decades After School Completion?

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Demography

Abstract

We study the effect of secondary education on cognitive performance toward the end of working age. We exploit the exogenous variation in years of schooling arising from compulsory schooling reforms implemented in six European countries during the 1950s and 1960s. Using data of individuals, approximately age 60, from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), we assess the causal effect of education on memory, fluency, numeracy, and orientation-to-date. Furthermore, we study education effects on cognitive decline. We find a positive impact of schooling on memory scores. One year of education increases the memory score approximately four decades later by about 0.2, which amounts to 10 % of a standard deviation. Furthermore, we find some evidence for a protective effect of schooling on cognitive decline in terms of verbal fluency.

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Notes

  1. A U.S. nun study has shown that low linguistic ability at age 22 was a strong predictor of poor cognitive function and Alzheimer’s disease in late life (Snowdon and Kemper 1996).

  2. The vector X ickt includes a female dummy variable and an indicator variable for whether a person was born abroad and migrated before age 5. It contains indicators for the interview year and control variables for the quality of the interview session (the interviewer’s perception of whether something may have impaired the respondent’s performance on the tests and whether another person was present during the interview) in Eq. (1) and an indicator for the first interview year, control variables for the quality of both interview sessions, and the number of months between the two interviews in Eq. (2). Note that all results are robust to adding the control variables for the quality of the interview session.

  3. We restrict the analysis to individuals born between 1939 and 1956: these individuals are between 47 and 73 years old at the time of the interviews. We focus on six European countries. Other countries participating in SHARE have also reformed their education systems, but these other reforms took place either too early or too late for our sampling period. In Sweden, compulsory schooling has been extended gradually in Swedish municipalities beginning in the 1960s, but SHARE does not provide detailed information about the municipalities.

  4. Although the survey was targeted at individuals aged 50+ only, cohabiting partners in the same household were interviewed even if they were younger at the time of the interview.

  5. Approximately 15 % of these respondents participated in all three waves, 23 % participated in two waves, and 62 % participated only once. The large number of individuals who participated only once is due to the fact that many countries extended the sample significantly in Wave 4. Furthermore, the Czech Republic joined the survey in Wave 2.

  6. We cluster the standard errors at the individual level because both the level and the slope analysis are based on multiple observations per individual. Also note that the slope analysis is based on multiple observations if individuals participated in all three waves.

  7. We further corrected the years of education variable. In all waves, the respondents were asked about their detailed (further and higher) educational qualifications. Based on these additional variables, we calculated their required years of education according to country-specific conversion tables. We replaced years of education with the required years of education in cases where the years of education were missing, zero, or implausibly low.

  8. The distribution of orientation to date is uneven and strongly skewed to the right (skewness = –4.99). Numeracy is also distributed right-tailed (skewness = –0.48.)

  9. The first-stage coefficients are similar in magnitude to those obtained in other studies investigating compulsory schooling laws in various European countries (e.g., Brunello et al. 2009, 2011, 2013; Fort et al. 2011).

  10. The bottom rows in Table 5 give p values of regression-based F statistics and indicate whether years of education can be treated as exogenous. These test statistics are based on the regressions obtained with the baseline sample and sample 5.

  11. We estimated IV-probit models for good numeracy and good orientation. The marginal effects of these models are very similar to those of the linear probability models and are not statistically significant.

  12. We find significant coefficients neither when the numeracy score is treated as a continuous variable nor when the cutoff for the binary indicator is lower or higher.

  13. Using the other samples, we find similar results with rising magnitudes and better precision with decreasing sample size. For example, using sample 5, the coefficients for delayed memory are approximately 0.3 and are statistically significant for females (at the 5 % level).

  14. First-stage estimates are 0.32 for males and 0.29 for females.

  15. The number of books at home is often used as proxy variable for family socioeconomic background.

  16. The first-stage coefficients are 0.27 for individuals with few books and 0.34 for individuals with many books at home.

  17. We have to include the real compulsory schooling reforms in the regressions as well because for some birth cohorts, the real compulsory schooling level and the placebo compulsory schooling level overlap.

  18. See Bonsang et al. (2012) or Bingley and Martinello (2011) for a discussion of the relationship between retirement and cognitive functioning.

  19. For a detailed analysis on the effects of education on fertility using compulsory schooling reforms in several European countries, see Fort et al. (2011).

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank four anonymous referees, René Böheim, Taryn Galloway, Bill Butz, and Eric Bonsang, as well as seminar participants in Wuppertal and Aarhus for useful comments. We thank the Austrian FWF for funding of the Austrian Center for Labor Economics and the Welfare State. The SHARE data collection has been primarily funded by the EU through the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Framework Programme, the U.S. National Institute of Aging (NIA), and other national funds (e.g., the Austrian Ministries of Science and Social Affairs). We acknowledge support by a Starting Grant of the European Research Council, Grant Agreement 241003-COHORT. The usual disclaimer applies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Altenbergerstr. 69, 4040, Linz, Austria

    Nicole Schneeweis & Rudolf Winter-Ebmer

  2. IZA, Bonn, Germany

    Nicole Schneeweis & Rudolf Winter-Ebmer

  3. IIASA, Schlossplatz 1, 2361, Laxenburg, Austria

    Vegard Skirbekk

  4. IHS, Vienna, Austria

    Rudolf Winter-Ebmer

  5. CEPR, London, UK

    Rudolf Winter-Ebmer

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  1. Nicole Schneeweis
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Correspondence to Nicole Schneeweis.

Appendix: Educational Reforms in Europe

Appendix: Educational Reforms in Europe

In this section, we briefly describe the compulsory schooling reforms investigated in this study.

Austria.

In 1962, a federal act was passed that increased compulsory schooling from eight to nine years. The law came into effect on September 1, 1966. Pupils who were 14 years old (or younger) at that time had to attend school for an additional year. Because compulsory education starts at the age of 6 and the cut-off date for school entry is September 1, (mostly) individuals born between September and December 1951 were the first ones affected by the reform. Thus, the pivotal cohort is 1951.

Czech Republic.

In the twentieth century, compulsory education has been reformed several times. In 1948, compulsory schooling was increased from eight to nine years (age 6 to 15). It was reduced to eight years in 1953 and increased to nine again in 1960. Two further changes took place in 1979 and 1990. We consider the education reform in 1960 for our analysis, with the first cohort affected by this reform being the cohort born in 1947. See Garrouste (2010) for more information on compulsory schooling reforms in the Czech Republic.

Denmark.

In 1958, compulsory education was increased by three years, from four to seven years of schooling. In 1971, compulsory schooling was further increased by two years, from seven to nine years. Education started at age 7; thus, pupils who were 11 years old (or younger) in 1958—that is, children born in 1947 or later—were potentially affected by the first reform. Because our data cover only those individuals aged 50+ and their younger spouses, we consider only the first reform for this study.

France.

Two education reforms were implemented in France. In 1936, compulsory schooling was increased from seven to eight years (from ages 6–13 to ages 6–14); and in 1959 from eight to 10 years (ages 14–16). After a long transition period, the second reform came into effect in 1967. For this analysis, we consider only the second reform, with the pivotal cohort being born in 1953.

Germany.

In the former Federal Republic of Germany, compulsory schooling was increased from eight to nine years of schooling. Because students start school at age 6, this was an increase in the school-leaving age from 14 to 15. The reform took place gradually in the 10 German states, starting from 1949 in Hamburg to 1969 in Bavaria. The first birth cohorts potentially affected by these reforms range from 1934 in Hamburg to 1955 in Bavaria.

Italy.

In 1963, junior high school became mandatory, which increased years of mandatory schooling by three years, from five to eight years of schooling. This reform increased the compulsory school career from ages 6–11 to 6–14. The first cohort potentially affected by this reform is the cohort born in 1949.

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Schneeweis, N., Skirbekk, V. & Winter-Ebmer, R. Does Education Improve Cognitive Performance Four Decades After School Completion?. Demography 51, 619–643 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-014-0281-1

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