Staying in school longer leads to better health

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There's a link between more education and a richer, healthier life. This isn't just conventional wisdom: it has been repeatedly established by research study after research study.

But how does this link work? Does education itself cause the boost in health-perhaps by making people richer? Do healthier children get ahead in school? Or does some other cause, like a wealthy background or greater cognitive ability, make people both more educated and healthier?

It's a complicated question to untangle, but a paper in Nature Human Behaviour this week uses data from a natural experiment to get some answers. They found that, regardless of their economic status, teenagers who were forced to stay in school a bit longer because of legal changes were healthier in later life than similar teenagers who only just missed the new regulations.

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