Linking Millennium Development Goals on Education and Health: Analysis of Gender Differences in Health Production in South Africa

Abstract

The overall objective of this analysis is to model gender differences in health production, specifically looking at the effects of education attainment.

Analysis of the relationships in this paper is based on the Grossman health investment model, using data from the South African General  Household Survey. We feature the role of gender as a key factor mediating part of the causality in the health-education relationship. The  measure of health is used as a dependent variable and analysed as a function of gender, education and other socio-economic factors  such as age, income, medical care, ethnicity, etc, using a multinomial logit estimator.

The baseline model results show gender differences in reported illness. The effect of education is largely negative; while interaction  effects show significant gender differences even for respondents with similar levels of education. For example, given similar levels of  education, females may be better able to produce health.

The results highlight the impact of education in the production of health among males and females, and measure (or provide numerical  evidence about) the potential impacts of policy variables to improve health. They suggest that policies or interventions designed to  provide greater opportunities to educate females are encouraged, as education has greater impact in the health production.