EDUCATION, PERSONAL CONTROL, LIFE-STYLE AND HEALTH - A HUMAN-CAPITAL HYPOTHESIS

The concept of human capital implies that education improves health be cause it increases effective agency. We propose that education's posit ive effects extend beyond jobs and earnings. Through education, indivi duals gain the ability to be effective agents in their own lives. Educ ation improves physical functioning and self-reported health because i t enhances a sense of personal control that encourages and enables a h ealthy lifestyle. We test three specific variants of the human-capital and learned-effectiveness hypothesis: (1) education enables people to coalesce health-producing behaviors into a coherent lifestyle, (2) a sense of control over outcomes in one's own life encourages a healthy lifestyle and conveys much of education's effect, and (3) educated par ents inspire a healthy lifestyle in their children. Using data from a 1995 national telephone probability sample of U.S. households with 2,5 92 respondents, ages 18 to 95, a covariance structure model produces r esults consistent with the three hypotheses.