Be smart, live long: The relationship between cognitive and non-cognitive abilities and mortality

Arbeitspapier

I study the association between cognitive and non-cognitive abilities and mortality, and investigate how well income and education act as proxy measures for ability. The risk of premature mortality is estimated using Cox proportional hazard models with a dataset of 692,303 Swedish men aged 18-20 years, enlisted between the years 1969-1983, and deaths between the years 1969 and 2009. Results suggest that both cognitive and non-cognitive abilities are strongly associated with mortality, independently and through income and education. Non-cognitive ability is a stronger predictor of the risk of mortality than cognitive ability. For middle and high income earners, and individuals with a college education, there are no associations between the abilities and mortality. However, for low income earners and individuals without a college education, cognitive and non-cognitive ability have strong associations with mortality. Results are mainly driven by the bottom of the measured ability distributions.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Working Paper ; No. 2015:21

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Health Behavior ; Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
• Subject: cognitive ability ; non-cognitive ability ; mortality ; education ; income

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Öhman, Mattias
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy (IFAU)
• (where): Uppsala
• (when): 2015

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/129387
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET