Education and migrant health in China

We examine the causal relationship between education and health among migrants using data from the China Migrants Dynamic Survey. Our identification strategy exploits exogenous changes in compulsory schooling laws and expansion in China's higher education sector. We find that an additional year of education increases the mean self-reported health scores of less-educated migrants by 2.6 percentage points; however, no significant effect is found for better-educated migrants. Heterogeneity analysis suggests that this result is driven by the effect of education on health for women and migrants residing in rural areas. We find that for less-educated migrants, the relationship between education and health is mediated by the positive effects of education on health awareness, healthcare utilization, health behaviors, and income. We conclude by emphasizing the implications of our findings for investing in social policies that result in better health outcomes.