Adding “education’s value” to mortality statistics: each extra year of schooling lowers adult mortality risk by roughly 1.9%
Every additional year of schooling reduces an adult’s risk of dying by about 1.9% on average. This effect is strongest among people aged 18–49, where the risk drops by roughly 2.9% per extra year; for those over 70, the drop is only about 0.8%. Naturally, people who manage to stay in school tend to come from more privileged backgrounds, so it’s hard to isolate how much of this benefit truly stems from education itself.
There’s no direct monetary cost. The real expense is the t…
This conclusion comes from a comprehensive meta-analysis that pooled data from 603 studies conducted at 70 loc…
There’s no direct monetary cost. The real expense is the time and effort required to stay in school; tuition fees are covered under Section 4 of this chapter (vocational school tuition and grants). The main challenge is staying committed to education over the long term.
This conclusion comes from a comprehensive meta-analysis that pooled data from 603 studies conducted at 70 locations across 59 countries between January 1980 and May 2023, involving a total of 10,355 observations. The results show a clear dose‑response relationship between years of schooling and adult mortality (all causes combined): each extra year of education lowers mortality risk by 1.9% on average (95% confidence interval: 1.8–2.0). For the 18–49 age group the reduction is about 2.9% per year (2.8–3.0), while for those over 70 it is roughly 0.8% per year (0.6–1.0). No gender differences were observed, nor any variation linked to a country’s level of development (as measured by the Social‑Demographic Index).
IHME-CHAIN Collaborators (2024). Effects of education on adult mortality: a global systematic review and meta-analysis. The Lancet Public Health, 9(3), e155-e165. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2468-2667(23)00306-7
Open source linkThe findings are controversial. The authors reported a significant publication bias (p < 0.0001), meaning studies with more favorable results were more likely to be published. Moreover, the results varied widely across individual studies. All included research relied on observational tracking rather than randomized trials; consequently, it’s difficult to disentangle how much of the 1.9% mortality reduction is attributable to education itself versus the fact that those who stay in school generally enjoy better socioeconomic conditions. Thus, while the data strongly suggest that more schooling correlates with longer life expectancy, they do not prove that simply attending school will guarantee a 1.9% reduction in mortality. The ultimate beneficiaries are the individuals themselves.