Do more educated people live longer?
A 25-YEAR-OLD American with a university degree can expect to live a decade longer than a contemporary who dropped out of high school. Although researchers have long known that the rich live longer than the poor, this education gap is less well documented—and is especially marked in rich countries.
Lutz argues that because schooling happens many years before a person has attained their life expectancy, this correlation reflects cause: better education drives longer life. It also tends to lead to more wealth, which is why wealth and longevity are also correlated.
Die earlier: At age 25, U.S. adults without a high school diploma can expect to die 9 years sooner than college graduates.
Education can also lead to more accurate health beliefs and knowledge, and thus to better lifestyle choices, but also to better skills and greater self-advocacy. Education improves skills such as literacy, develops effective habits, and may improve cognitive ability.
Anecdotally, smarter people do seem to live longer. Isaac Newton died in 1727 aged 84, the philosopher-mathematician Bertrand Russell lived to 97, while Nobel Prize-winning neurobiologist Rita Levi-Montalcini died in 2012 aged 103.
Education provides stability in life, and it's something that no one can ever take away from you. By being well-educated and holding a college degree, you increase your chances for better career opportunities and open up new doors for yourself.
They can easily navigate the health care system; they have more social support. Reading helps us understand how other people think and feel. Reading improves our emotional intelligence.
Unhealthy behaviors contribute to 40% of U.S. deaths, he wrote. “By every metric measured, more educated people have healthier behaviors than less educated people.
At each age, those with lower levels of education had lower life expectancies.
In fact, a comprehensive review recently concluded that level of education does not reliably influence the rate of cognitive decline in aging (8). Also, associations between secular improvements in average education and historical changes in rates of cognitive change are generally weak (9).