Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Title: Unintended Health Costs of Gender Equalization
Author-Name: Cristina Bellés-Obrero
Author-Email: 
Author-Name: Sergi Jiménez-Martín
Author-Email: 
Author-Name: Judit Vall Castello
Author-Email: 
Classification-JEL: I12, I20, J10
Keywords:  minimum working age, education, mortality, gender

Abstract: In 1980, a few years after the democratization process, Spain raised the minimum working age
from 14 to 16, while the compulsory education age remained at 14. This reform changed the
within-cohort incentives to remain in the educational system. Using a difference-in-differences
approach, we analyze the gender asymmetries in mortality generated by this change. The reform,
through its effects on education, decreased mortality at ages 14-29 among men (6.4%)
and women (8.9%), mainly from the reduction in deaths due to traffic accidents. However, the
reform also increased mortality for prime-age women (30-45) by 7%. This last effect is driven
by increases in HIV mortality, as well as by diseases related to the nervous and circulatory
system. We show that health habits of women deteriorated as a consequence of the reform, but
this was not the case for men. The gender differences in the impact of education on smoking
and drinking are driven by the gender equalization process that the affected women were experiencing
when the reform took place. All in all, these patterns help explain the narrowing
age gap in life expectancy between women and men in many developed countries while, at the
same time, they provide important policy implications for middle income countries that are
undergoing those gender equalization process right now.

Note: 
Length: 66
Creation-Date: 2020-04
Revision-Date: 
File-URL: https://www.crctr224.de/research/discussion-papers/archive/dp103
File-Format: application/pdf
Handle: RePEc:bon:boncrc:CRCTR224_2020_103v2