Education and reproductive health: evidence from schooling expansion in Turkey

AbstractWe investigate the role of additional years of schooling mandated by a compulsory schooling expansion law in affecting reproductive preferences and safe reproductive health behaviors in Turkey —a middle-to-high-income country with gender inequity in education but overall high levels of safe reproductive health practices at the time of passing the law. Using a fuzzy regression discontinuity design, we find that the additional schooling improved several health behaviors. However, the effe cts on some outcomes commonly analyzed in the existing literature, such as contraceptive use or fertility, were either weak or insignificant. Overall, our findings complement the current literature on the marginal health benefits of schooling expansion and suggest that policymakers consider the inst itutional and cultural factors while evaluating the scope and potential non-educational benefits of such expansions.
Source: International Journal of Health Care Finance and Economics - Category: Health Management Source Type: research