Good health and a long life may have more to do with how you grew up than how much education you have under your belt, research from Denmark hints.
Good health and a long life may have more to do with how you grew up than how much education you have under your belt, research from Denmark hints.
It is well known that socioeconomically advantaged individuals (those having higher education, income, or occupation) tend to have better health than disadvantaged individuals. The mechanisms for this and the way contributing factors are interrelated are still poorly understood, but common explanations emphasize material conditions (e.g., lack of basic amenities and access to services), lifestyle and behavioral factors, and psychological interpretations (low stress in higher socioeconomic hierarchy). However, the association between socioeconomic position and health may not be causal and could be due to selection processes, working either directly by selection of healthier individuals into higher socioeconomic positions or indirectly via genetic or other background factors influencing both socioeconomic position and health.
To look at the impact of education and upbringing on longevity, researchers in Denmark looked at 2,168 same-sex or identical twins whose educations differed in length and at least one of whom had died. The wins belonged to different socioeconomic status but were matched on genetic setup and rearing environment thus allowing the researchers to isolate the effect of education from genetic and environmental factors.
It was found that the ones with no more than seven years of schooling were about 25 percent more likely to have died. But when comparing twins within each pair, that difference became much less pronounced and could have been due to chance. The social inequality seemed to get smaller when the researchers accounted for genetics and upbringing.
The findings suggest that upbringing patterns has more to do with the health and longevity of people than education status.
It is well known that socioeconomically advantaged individuals (those having higher education, income, or occupation) tend to have better health than disadvantaged individuals. The mechanisms for this and the way contributing factors are interrelated are still poorly understood, but common explanations emphasize material conditions (e.g., lack of basic amenities and access to services), lifestyle and behavioral factors, and psychological interpretations (low stress in higher socioeconomic hierarchy). However, the association between socioeconomic position and health may not be causal and could be due to selection processes, working either directly by selection of healthier individuals into higher socioeconomic positions or indirectly via genetic or other background factors influencing both socioeconomic position and health.
To look at the impact of education and upbringing on longevity, researchers in Denmark looked at 2,168 same-sex or identical twins whose educations differed in length and at least one of whom had died. The wins belonged to different socioeconomic status but were matched on genetic setup and rearing environment thus allowing the researchers to isolate the effect of education from genetic and environmental factors.
It was found that the ones with no more than seven years of schooling were about 25 percent more likely to have died. But when comparing twins within each pair, that difference became much less pronounced and could have been due to chance. The social inequality seemed to get smaller when the researchers accounted for genetics and upbringing.
The findings suggest that upbringing patterns has more to do with the health and longevity of people than education status.
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