The Social Relations: Education, Income and Health
Session
Medical, Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences
Description
This paper puts forward a conceptual framework in social context linking education, income and health. There are a number of theoretical frameworks available. Advocates of each tend to work within specific academic disciplines or traditions such as public health, economics, developmental psychology and sociology. The paper raises the question; does education and income lead to better health? The answer isn’t that simple. While it is commonly understood that the more educated you are, the higher your income is likely to be, which is also likely to lead to better health, the evidence for the links between education and health is less developed. A key reason for this paper is that the research area is necessarily inter-disciplinary and does not sit comfortably within any single disciplinary foundation. The economic returns to education are relatively easily understood as the result of the human capital formed in the education process. Education does not act on health in isolation from other factors. The health effects of education are much broader in scope, reflecting a much wider set of outcomes with an equivalently wider set of mechanisms. This paper lays out the mechanisms for the effects of education on health but this is not to suggest that other factors do not have importance independently of education. Education may impact on income and so some of the effect of income may be thought of as the channelling of the effect of education but that is not to subsume the whole income effect under the heading of education. Our aim is not to depreciate the significance of income but to support a more balanced view that recognizes that many factors are important in the generation of health.
Keywords:
health; social impact; education; income
Session Chair
Besnik Elshani
Session Co-Chair
Petrit Biberaj
Proceedings Editor
Edmond Hajrizi
ISBN
978-9951-437-54-7
Location
Durres, Albania
Start Date
28-10-2017 11:00 AM
End Date
28-10-2017 12:30 PM
DOI
10.33107/ubt-ic.2017.309
Recommended Citation
Xhindi, Nevila, "The Social Relations: Education, Income and Health" (2017). UBT International Conference. 309.
https://knowledgecenter.ubt-uni.net/conference/2017/all-events/309
The Social Relations: Education, Income and Health
Durres, Albania
This paper puts forward a conceptual framework in social context linking education, income and health. There are a number of theoretical frameworks available. Advocates of each tend to work within specific academic disciplines or traditions such as public health, economics, developmental psychology and sociology. The paper raises the question; does education and income lead to better health? The answer isn’t that simple. While it is commonly understood that the more educated you are, the higher your income is likely to be, which is also likely to lead to better health, the evidence for the links between education and health is less developed. A key reason for this paper is that the research area is necessarily inter-disciplinary and does not sit comfortably within any single disciplinary foundation. The economic returns to education are relatively easily understood as the result of the human capital formed in the education process. Education does not act on health in isolation from other factors. The health effects of education are much broader in scope, reflecting a much wider set of outcomes with an equivalently wider set of mechanisms. This paper lays out the mechanisms for the effects of education on health but this is not to suggest that other factors do not have importance independently of education. Education may impact on income and so some of the effect of income may be thought of as the channelling of the effect of education but that is not to subsume the whole income effect under the heading of education. Our aim is not to depreciate the significance of income but to support a more balanced view that recognizes that many factors are important in the generation of health.