Education promises a better life

Educated people are less likely to suffer depression, are more motivated to achieve and are healthier than those who leave school at a young age, research suggests.

While it is widely acknowledged that graduates achieve a higher job status and better rates of pay than non-graduates, the research - by London University's Institute of Education - suggests the psychological, physical and emotional impacts of learning are just as significant.

For government to neglect the wider range of benefits would be damaging, not only to the individual, but to society

Professor John Bynner

Education helps people solve problems and manage radical change, such as redundancy, divorce or widowhood, researchers found.

The skills acquired through learning helped people understand what further skills they needed and how best to use the skills of others.

The educated people observed were healthier - they made better use of preventative screening services and complied with dietary restrictions.

They were also found to get better treatment from doctors than people with less education but the same symptoms.

The more education elderly people had had, past and present, the less prone they were to mental deterioration.

Late pregnancy risks

However, educated people were more likely to postpone marriage and having children - to the point where many women remained childless or ran the medical risks of late pregnancy.

The director of the research centre, Professor John Bynner, said they were keen to establish the non-economic returns of education and learning.

"It is very important to engage more people in the learning society, because there are all sorts of benefits other than those to do with getting jobs and earning money," he said.

"But it is very important to remove the barriers from negative past experiences which have prevented people from succeeding in the past.

"We need to make learning opportunities more widespread and more easy and closer to where the people are rather than where the providers are," he said.

Economic concern

Education had been dominated for too long by a narrow concern with economic outcomes, he said.

"Our research makes it plain that for government to neglect the wider range of benefits would be damaging, not only to the individual, but to society," Professor Bynner said.

The research findings - which were based on a number of international studies and on observation of 12,000 British citizens born in 1958 and 12,000 born in 1970 - will be used to discuss government policy development.

Professor Bynner said it was now necessary to pinpoint some of the factors behind the research findings.

"It is very unclear as to why this is the case - why should mental health be related to qualifications?"

Further research by the unit to answer such questions is likely to be published in the autumn.