Social Benefits of Education

In: The annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Volume 559, Issue 1, p. 54-63

Abstract

The majority of research on the outcomes of education has focused on the effect of educational attainment on individuals' wages and on the level of skill in the economy as a whole. In this article, however, Nevzer Stacey argues that examining the social benefits of education beyond its economic impact would provide a more comprehensive informational basis for developing national educational policies. She reviews the literature that examines the impact of educational attainment on four areas of potential intervention: health; family structure, fertility, and child care; the environment; and crime. Although these studies report some statistics on education, virtually none uses measures of learning or inputs related to the learning process to estimate the effect of education. Stacey concludes that a more systematic analysis is needed to improve our under-standing of the full effect of education on society in order to determine appropriate public policy.