TY - JOUR
T1 - Disentangling potential causal effects of educational duration on well-being, and mental and physical health outcomes
AU - van de Weijer, Margot
AU - Demange, Perline
AU - Pelt, Dirk
AU - Bartels, Meike
AU - Nivard, Michel
N1 - Funding Information: Margot van de Weijer, Dirk Pelt, and Meike Bartels are supported by the European Research Council Consolidator Grant (ERC-2017-COG 771057 WELL-BEING PI Bartels). Margot van de Weijer is funded by the European Union (ERC, UNRAVEL-CAUSALITY, project nr. 101076686). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. Perline Demange is supported by the grant 531003014 from The Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development (ZonMW). Michel Nivard is supported by R01MH120219, ZonMW grants 849200011919 and 531003014 from The Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development, a VENI grant awarded by NWO (VI.Veni.191G.030), and is a Jacobs Foundation Research Fellow. Publisher Copyright: Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press.
PY - 2023/11/15
Y1 - 2023/11/15
N2 - Extensive research has focused on the potential benefits of education on various mental and physical health outcomes. However, whether the associations reflect a causal effect is harder to establish. To examine associations between educational duration and specific aspects of well-being, anxiety and mood disorders, and cardiovascular health in UK Biobank data, we apply four different causal inference methods (a natural policy experiment leveraging the minimum school leaving age, a sibling-control design, mendelian randomization (MR), and within-family MR), and assess if the methods converge on the same conclusion. A comparison of results across the four methods reveals that associations between educational duration and these outcomes appears predominantly to be the result of confounding or bias rather than a true causal effect of education on well-being and health outcomes. Whereas we do consistently find no associations between educational duration and happiness, family satisfaction, work satisfaction, meaning in life, depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder, we do not find consistent significant associations across all methods for the other phenotypes (health satisfaction, financial satisfaction, friendship satisfaction, neuroticism, and cardiovascular outcomes). We discuss inconsistencies in results across methods considering their respective limitations and biases, and additionally discuss the generalizability of our findings in light of the sample and phenotype limitations. Overall, this study strengthens the idea that triangulation across different methods is necessary to enhance our understanding of the causal consequences of educational duration.
AB - Extensive research has focused on the potential benefits of education on various mental and physical health outcomes. However, whether the associations reflect a causal effect is harder to establish. To examine associations between educational duration and specific aspects of well-being, anxiety and mood disorders, and cardiovascular health in UK Biobank data, we apply four different causal inference methods (a natural policy experiment leveraging the minimum school leaving age, a sibling-control design, mendelian randomization (MR), and within-family MR), and assess if the methods converge on the same conclusion. A comparison of results across the four methods reveals that associations between educational duration and these outcomes appears predominantly to be the result of confounding or bias rather than a true causal effect of education on well-being and health outcomes. Whereas we do consistently find no associations between educational duration and happiness, family satisfaction, work satisfaction, meaning in life, depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder, we do not find consistent significant associations across all methods for the other phenotypes (health satisfaction, financial satisfaction, friendship satisfaction, neuroticism, and cardiovascular outcomes). We discuss inconsistencies in results across methods considering their respective limitations and biases, and additionally discuss the generalizability of our findings in light of the sample and phenotype limitations. Overall, this study strengthens the idea that triangulation across different methods is necessary to enhance our understanding of the causal consequences of educational duration.
KW - Causality
KW - Education
KW - Health
KW - Mendelian randomization
KW - Well-being
KW - Within-family
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85177173607&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - https://doi.org/10.1017/S003329172300329X
DO - https://doi.org/10.1017/S003329172300329X
M3 - Article
C2 - 37964430
SN - 0033-2917
SP - 1
EP - 16
JO - Psychological Medicine
JF - Psychological Medicine
ER -