The Influence Mechanism of Education on Health from the Sustainable Development Perspective

Abstract

Good health and quality education are two important goals of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). More and more people pay attention to physical and mental health in a pandemic age. Previous studies have paid more attention to the relationship between socioeconomic status and health, and also scholars at home and abroad have not reached a consistent conclusion on how education affects health. In this study, we try to explore the relationship between education and health from the sustainable development perspective and its internal influence mechanism through the data of China General Social Survey (CGSS) in 2015 and 2017, according to Grossman's health demand model. The results indicated that from the junior high school education, physical health improved with the increase of the education level, but this effect was gradually weakened. The relationship between education and mental health is not a simple linear relationship but an inverted U-shaped change. After 16 years of education, mental health gradually decreases. Compared with women and rural population, men and urban population have better health. Education leads to labor market segmentation, which makes people with different education levels in different social structure positions, resulting in differentiation of lifestyles, psychology, and social interaction, and this ultimately leads to health inequality. Education indirectly improves people's health by changing healthy behaviors, cultivating healthy psychology, and strengthening social interactions.