Key to Longevity: Education; Stay in School to live a long life

Want to live a long life? If you do, and of course you do, then stay in school. That's one possible takeaway from research being done by James Smith, a health economist at the RAND Corporation.

In every society, there is an average life expectancy for the nation as whole. Within the country there are then different life spans for various defined subsets (segmented by sex, race, geography, education, and even religion.

But the questions for economists, statisticians and other researchers like Dr. Smith are what are the statistically significant factors?

Economists love surprise results from studies and they love the data to speak for itself. According to Smith the data on longevity is quite clear. The most significant social factor is education. This has proven true in every country where it has been studied. It is more important than race, income and health insurance. Smith is not alone and the importance of education of longevity is not disputed by the National Institute of Aging.

Health insurance, too, says [Smith], “is vastly overrated in the policy debate.”

Of course it's not the only factor less we forget smoking, obesity and having a network of friends--all of which impact life expectancy. But education can impact those as well.

This is not a new idea. Almost 40 years ago a paper was published on the subject with the message that you will get more return on improving health by "investing in education than by investing in medical care. It turned out that life expectancy at age 35 was extended by as much as one and a half years simply by going to school for one extra year."

Furthermore, education does not suffer from the law of diminishing returns. The education effect never wanes and as education continues to be added so does life expectancy.

But what possible effect could education have on longevity?

One popular theory is that "less educated people are less able to plan for the future and to delay gratification. If true, that may, for example, explain the differences in smoking rates between more educated people and less educated ones." Less educated people know that smoking is bad for them just as much as educated people. However they might be less prone to delay gratification than educated people.

This theory would make education an indicator but not a cause of longer lives. However, some believe that education teaches people to delay gratification (which is important because much of living a healthy life involves delaying gratification).

The debate will continue but consider this to be one more argument for staying in school (or encouraging your children to do so). As the author of the study noted, 'seize the day' is not necessarily consistent with living a long life.