GENDER AND THE HEALTH BENEFITS OF EDUCATION

Does education improve health more for one sex than the other? We develop a theory of resource substitution which implies that education improves health more for women than men. Data from a 1995 survey of U.S. adults with follow-ups in 1998 and 2001 support the hypothesis. Physical impairment decreases more for women than for men as the level of education increases. The gender gap in impairment essentially disappears among people with a college degree. Latent growth SEM vectors also show that among the college educated, men's and women's life course patterns of physical impairment do not differ significantly.