Abstract
This chapter reviews a wide array of research on the impact of educational attainment on quality of life. Adopting Cummins’ (Soc Indi Res 38:303–328, 1996; Assessing quality of life. In Brown RI (ed) Quality of life for people with disabilities. Stanley Thornes Cheltenham, pp 116–150, 1997) quality of life schema as a heuristic framework the authors consider educational effects in seven broad life domains: achieving in life; material well-being/standard of living; emotional well-being/resiliency; physical health; community; intimate relationships; and personal safety/future security. The reviewed research reveals the effects of educational attainment on QoL to be multidimensional (cutting across life domains) and often reciprocal (conditioning of and conditioned by domains) in nature. The mechanisms underlying the education-QoL relationship are discussed in terms of three basic pathways by which education imparts benefits (Introduction. In Behrman JR, Crawford DL, Stacey N (eds) The social benefits of education. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbour, pp 1–9, 1997): (a) improving the stock of knowledge and the analytical skills individuals use to guide their behavior; (b) altering individuals’ preferences; and (c) altering the constraints/opportunities presented to individuals. The authors conclude that although there are still numerous questions and gaps remaining, the case for the positive effects of educational attainment on quality of life is in the balance very convincing.
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Notes
- 1.
Human capital is succinctly defined by the OECD (1998: 9) as “the knowledge, skills, competences, and other attributes embodied in individuals that are relevant to economic activity.” Highest level of education attained and/or number of years of schooling are the most common operational definitions of human capital.
- 2.
See Sirgy et al. (2006) for an overview and progress report of QoL research across several prominent fields of inquiry.
- 3.
The ComQoL was abandoned in 2001 due to persistent problems with the instrument (see Cummins 2002). Cummins and associates subsequently established the International Wellbeing Group that is developing a new quality of life measurement, the Personal Wellbeing Index (International Wellbeing Group 2006). In the PWI, the original ComQoL domains have been modified slightly and an eighth added. Thus, the PWI quality of life domains are standard of living, health, achieving in life, relationships, safety, community-connectedness, future security, and spirituality/religion. While the PWI itself is intended only to measure subjective satisfaction within these domains, one of the criteria for domain selection was commensurability with objective measurement (or at least the possibility of objective measurement when suitable indicators are established) of each domain as well (International Wellbeing Group 2006).
- 4.
The literature review was conducted using the following databases: Education: A SAGE Full-text Collection, Psychology: A SAGE Full-text Collection, Sociology: A SAGE Full-text Collection, ERIC, CSA Sociological Abstracts, EconLit, and PsychINFO. In addition to quality of life, other potentially equivalent keywords used in the search included wellbeing, wellness, standard of living, happiness, subjective wellbeing, life satisfaction, benefits.
- 5.
- 6.
“Specifically, self-regulation refers to processes, such as the tendency to maintain attention on a task and to suppress inappropriate behavior under instructions” (Miech et al. 2001: 103).
- 7.
Also called the “sheepskin effect” (Card 1998: 7).
- 8.
The outcome variable in the monetary return to education is typically the average log hourly wage.
- 9.
See also Duncan and Dunifon (1998).
- 10.
There is some evidence for the positive effects of happiness on health (Veenhoven 2008).
- 11.
Portes (1998, 2000) and others (e.g., Morrow 1999) argue that, increasingly, the application of the social capital as collective property approach is being uncritically stretched beyond the limits of its usefulness and as, a result, is become increasingly vague, all encompassing, and of dubious analytical value.
- 12.
Mouw (2003) contends that evidence for the positive effects of network social capital on labor market outcomes is—upon closer inspection—confounded and that while the utility of influential contacts is intuitively appealing, better evidence is still required to substantiate proponents’ claims regarding social capital mechanisms.
- 13.
Similar results emerged when she conducted the analysis at the level of census tracts and at the level of school districts.
- 14.
Strong correlations for peer group are confounded by inadequate control for self-selection.
- 15.
Farkas (2003: 556) notes that a growing body of research suggests that “[p]atterns of habitual behavior, particularly the extent of conscientiousness or good work habits, developed from birth through adolescence, in conjunction with the cognitive skills developed alongside these behaviors, determine school success and schooling and occupational attainment. These skills and habits then combine with skills and habits developed on the job to determine employment and earnings success.”
- 16.
Kohn et al. (1990) found that while the significant relationship between level of education and priority given to autonomy held in the USA, it was not evident in Japan or Poland.
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International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED): The International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED-97) is used to define the levels and fields of education used as part of the OECD’s system of education indicators (OECD 2006). For details on ISCED 1997 and how it is nationally implemented, see Classifying Educational Programmes: Manual for ISCED-97 Implementation in OECD Countries (OECD 1999b). Levels include Pre-primary education (ISCED 0), Primary education (ISCED 1), Lower secondary education (ISCED 2), Upper secondary education (ISCED 3), Postsecondary non-tertiary level of education (ISCED 4), Tertiary-type A education (ISCED 5A), Tertiary-type B education (ISCED 5B), and Advanced Research Qualifications (ISCED 6).
Upper secondary education (ISCED 3): Upper secondary education (ISCED 3) corresponds to the final stage of secondary education in most OECD countries. Instruction is often more organized along subject matter lines than at ISCED level 2, and teachers usually need to have a higher level, or more subject-specific, qualifications than at ISCED 2. The entrance age to this level is typically 15 or 16 years. There are substantial differences in the typical duration of ISCED 3 programs both across and between countries, typically ranging from 2 to 5 years of schooling. ISCED 3 may either be “terminal” (i.e., preparing the students for entry directly into working life) and/or “preparatory” (i.e., preparing students for tertiary education). Programs at level 3 can also be subdivided into three categories based on the degree to which the program is specifically oriented toward a specific class of occupations or trades and leads to a labor-market relevant qualification: general, pre-vocational or pre-technical, and vocational or technical programs.
Postsecondary non-tertiary level of education (ISCED 4): Postsecondary non-tertiary education straddles the boundary between upper secondary and postsecondary education from an international point of view, even though it might clearly be considered upper secondary or postsecondary programs in a national context. Although their content may not be significantly more advanced than upper secondary programs, they serve to broaden the knowledge of participants who have already gained an upper secondary qualification. The students tend to be older than those enrolled at the upper secondary level.
Tertiary-type A education (ISCED 5A): Tertiary-type A programs (ISCED 5A) are largely theory based and are designed to provide sufficient qualifications for entry to advanced research programs and professions with high skill requirements, such as medicine, dentistry, or architecture. Tertiary-type A programs have a minimum cumulative theoretical duration (at tertiary level) of 3 years full-time equivalent, although they typically last 4 or more years. These programs are not exclusively offered at universities. Conversely, not all programs nationally recognized as university programs fulfill the criteria to be classified as tertiary-type A. Tertiary-type A programs include second degree programs like the American Master. First and second programs are subclassified by the cumulative education of the programs, i.e., the total study time needed at the tertiary level to complete the degree.
Tertiary-type B education (ISCED 5B): Tertiary-type B programs (ISCED 5B) are typically shorter than those of tertiary-type A and focus on practical, technical, or occupational skills for direct entry into the labor market, although some theoretical foundations may be covered in the respective programs. They have a minimum duration of 2 years full-time equivalent at the tertiary level.
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Edgerton, J.D., Roberts, L.W., von Below, S. (2012). Education and Quality of Life. In: Land, K., Michalos, A., Sirgy, M. (eds) Handbook of Social Indicators and Quality of Life Research. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2421-1_12
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