Egészség, oktatás és emberi tőke
Health, Education and Human Capital

Summary/Abstract: The study starts by introducing human capital theory. This theory deals with the idea that human health and education are essential factors for economic prosperity and development. However, Economic Thought recognizes another relationship between education and health, namely, externalities. The point is that people with an educated background will tend to be healthier and thus require less of what is on offer from the community/ public sector as regards medical attention. Among the countries of the European Union, Hungarian average life expectancy at birth is one of the worst – as is the case in other post-socialist countries. There are various theories explaining the negative situation of domestic life expectancy, among which are the following: lifestyle, environmental and psychological factors, and healthcare. The study further notes that there is clear connection between education and life expectancy at birth, although this is weak. We find a much stronger relationship between life expectancy at birth and results from international comparative measurements regarding Learning Performance (PISA). These results show that average life expectancy at birth alters with the level of education – even if it is not the number of years of actual, formal schooling, but measurable performance indicators at the level of education. This reveals the well known fact that formal education within post-communist countries show – most likely due to quality issues pertaining to post-socialist education – higher levels of education as key performance indicators.

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