Education and its Effects on the Income, Health and Survival of those aged Sixty-five and Over

We explore the effects of income and, additionally education on the income, self-reported health and survival of people aged sixty-five and over in order to identify benefits resulting from education which are omitted in the conventional analysis with its focus on labour income excluding employer contributions. We find that well educated people enjoy substantially higher incomes and longer healthy lives. However our estimates of the magnitudes of these are sharply reduced if we imposed on our model, estimated from British Household Panel Survey Data, the restrictions that the mortality rates it generates should be consistent with aggregate official data. Nevertheless, discounted back to age 21 we estimate that men with higher education qualifications receive on average, after the age of sixtyfive, benefits worth £42, 000. For women the comparable figure is £26,000. JEL Codes: C33, C35, J17, J24