TY - JOUR
T1 - Life expectancy and human capital investments
T2 - Evidence from maternal mortality declines
AU - Jayachandran, Seema
AU - Lleras-Muney, Adriana
PY - 2009/2
Y1 - 2009/2
N2 - Theory suggests that longer life expectancy encourages educational investment because a longer time horizon increases the value of investments that pay out over time. To estimate the magnitude of this effect, we examine a sudden drop in maternal mortality in Sri Lanka between 1946 and 1953, which sharply increased the life expectancy of girls. We assess whether girls' education relative to boys' increases more in areas with larger maternal mortality declines. We find that for every extra year of life expectancy, literacy increases by 0.7 percentage points (2%) and years of education increase by 0.11 years (3%).
AB - Theory suggests that longer life expectancy encourages educational investment because a longer time horizon increases the value of investments that pay out over time. To estimate the magnitude of this effect, we examine a sudden drop in maternal mortality in Sri Lanka between 1946 and 1953, which sharply increased the life expectancy of girls. We assess whether girls' education relative to boys' increases more in areas with larger maternal mortality declines. We find that for every extra year of life expectancy, literacy increases by 0.7 percentage points (2%) and years of education increase by 0.11 years (3%).
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U2 - 10.1162/qjec.2009.124.1.349
DO - 10.1162/qjec.2009.124.1.349
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:62949190998
SN - 0033-5533
VL - 124
SP - 349
EP - 397
JO - Quarterly Journal of Economics
JF - Quarterly Journal of Economics
IS - 1
ER -