Health Returns to Education Across the Life Course: Measuring Health in Children and Adolescents in the National Educational Panel Study

Abstract

Health is an important non-monetary outcome of education surveyed by the National Education Panel Study (NEPS). In addition to its effects in adulthood (see Lettau et al., 2020), the interplay between education and health also plays a role for children and adolescents. For this reason, the NEPS provides longitudinal data on various aspects of health, education, relevant control variables, and mechanisms for the starting cohorts that focus on younger age groups. This allows data users to analyze the impact of education on individual health and relevant mechanisms for children and adolescents. This survey paper introduces the measurement concept for health in the NEPS starting cohorts 1 to 4 and provides first descriptive analyses.