Group Difference In The Beneftis From Education To Health

Health is important for everybody,and is the key goal in medical filed,and is also the foundation of the social and economic development for our country.With the development of public health,medical technology and the improvement of living standard,health condition of residents has been improved.At the same time,health inequality has always been there,especially in different groups.Researchers in different countries explored the reasons of health disparity.And the relationship between SES(social and economic status)and health inequality has become an important topic.As an important indicator to measure the social and economic status,education has the stability and importance at the same time.For this reason,this paper explores the group difference in the benefits between education and health,and discusses the important role of education in improving health inequality.This study adopts the perspective of ‘social causality’ to study the relationship between education and health.At present,the research on the relationship between education and health mainly focuses on the group difference from the horizontal perspective and the time dimension from vertical perspective,which is embodied in three aspects: first is the group difference,and there are two main hypotheses,which are the resource substitution hypothesis and the resource strengthening hypothesis.With age,there are two different hypotheses about the impact of education on health:the cumulative advantage hypothesis and the age-as-lever hypothesis.From the perspective of historical change,there are two views on the trend of birth cohort in the relationship between education and health: the rising importance hypothesis and the diminishing health returns hypothesis.These hypotheses are based on the empirical research of Western countries,and the interpretation is mainly based on the social facts of Western countries.There are few researches on it in domestic.In China,the difference in ownership of resources is not only reflected in different gender,but also reflected in urban and rural residents.And the gender equality,urban and rural equality in access to educational resources and other resources are changing with time.Therefore,this study attempts to use panel data of China Family Panel Survey from 2010 to 2016,with the perspective of life course and social change,and use a series of growth curve models to analyze the gender differences and urban-rural differences in health returns of education and to verify which hypothesis has been verified in China.This study tries to explore the differences between the evolution of the relationship between social education and health in China and discuss the possible reasons for the difference between China and other countries.And the health is measured by self-rated health,chronic diseases and mental health.The following are the conclusions.Men is healthier than women,and urban residents is healthier than rural residents.The health disparity has a strong relationship with the resource difference."Age-as-lever hypothesis" and "Cumulative effect hypothesis" were supported in different group.The gender differences in the ratio of self-rated health to chronic diseases narrowed in the elderly,which also verified the "age-as-lever hypothesis" to a certain extent.However,the difference of self-rated health and mental health between urban and rural residents is expanding with age,which supports the "cumulative effect hypothesis".The expansion of urban-rural disparity results from the accumulation of rural residents’ resource disadvantage.And the narrowing of gender disparity is the results of physiological factors and selective survival.Education has a significant positive impact on self-rated health,psychological health and the inhibition of chronic diseases.However,the growth rate of chronic diseases in group with higher education is faster than in group with lower education.The "failure" of educational returns in chronic diseases is highly related to the economic development stage of Chinese society,the dietary transformation and cultural customs.There are group differences in the benefits from education to health.And the health returns of education to men is weaker than that of women,and the return to urban residents is weaker than that of rural residents.The "resource substitution hypothesis" has been supported in three measures of health: self-rated health,chronic diseases and mental health.The validation of the "resource substitution hypothesis" partly reflects the view of the "transformative theory",that is,education is an important way for the upward mobility of the lower-class residents and the core resources for disadvantaged groups to have better health.With the increase of age,the effects of education on self-rated health and chronic diseases are weakened,and the weakening trend is stronger among female groups and urban residents.The "age-neutralization effect hypothesis" has been partially verified.Compared with the oldest cohort,the impact of education on self-rated health and chronic diseases has been weakened among younger cohort.And the ‘diminishing health return hypothesis’ was partially supported.On the one hand,due to the development of medical science and technology and the improvement of social security system,people’s health level has been generally improved.On the other hand,influenced by education expansion,educational opportunities increase,academic degrees depreciate,and the ability to obtain resources through education is declining.However,the weakening trend of education on health returns is mainly reflected in urban and male groups,the impact of education on the cohort born in 1981-1990 has even increased in self-rated health and chronic diseases among female and rural residents.This diminishing trend is exceptional among women and rural residents,because the resource-disadvantaged groups have more difficulty in obtaining education and less access to resources.It further confirms the importance of education to the disadvantaged groups and supports the transformative theory.