CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- The expansion of secondary and higher education is closely connected to the rise of democracy abroad, a University of Illinois economist concludes in a book to be published this year.
Education has played a vital role in the breakdown of authoritarian regimes around the world. "This is a long-run effect noticeable in Latin America where all of the larger nations now have democracies after more than two centuries of dictatorships, whereas most of sub-Saharan Africa is authoritarian and unstable," said Walter W. McMahon, an emeritus professor of economics.
"Those nations that have had higher secondary enrollment rates, such as Costa Rica, are much further ahead with democratization than others that are also ex-colonies at the same per-capita income levels that have low secondary enrollments," he said.
McMahon's "Education and Development: Measuring the Social Benefits" (Oxford University Press) is part of a trend by researchers to examine education not simply as a private benefit for students, but as a broader agent that contributes to quality of life, political stability and economic expansion.
"Political stability comes about over the long run as education levels improve," McMahon said. Differing levels of investment in education also appear to be closely related to the discrepancies found among the growth rates in Southeast Asia and Africa.
"Poor countries begin to catch up to the West if they invest in human-resource development through education, but not otherwise. The result is that there is not the 'convergence' of growth rates, as some economists have predicted, but variations among countries."
What's more, as average income rises in poor nations, parents demand more and better education for their children. "The demand for education improves the 'human capital' of the country. Without educated people to run them, the best machines and most modern factories are useless."
Putting dollar values on the "external" or social benefits of education has been viewed as difficult. However, the magnitude of the benefits can be gleaned by a recent study that found that each additional year of schooling has positive effects on health and lowers the probability of death of adults by 0.4 percentage points, McMahon said.
On this basis, he estimates that the average U.S. college graduate gains a lifetime equivalent of $488,000 in health-related benefits above those with only a high-school diploma. The relationship between education and health is especially strong for women and their children. Mothers who have gone to college are less likely to have low birthweight babies, McMahon said. And in the United States, at least, children are healthier because college-educated mothers smoke less.
"All told, the latest research suggests that schooling is a more important determinant of societal well-being than either occupation or income," McMahon said.