New research reveals that those with higher education are less likely to have psychiatric problems, with each additional year of education associated with a decrease in the risk of depression and schizophrenia, for example. It suggests that more years of education somehow protects against such conditions.
Researchers from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam wrote this in the magazine Nature Mental Health. They base their findings on, among other things, a study among 1.7 million Dutch people, which specifically examined whether there is a link between education level and mental well-being. And that indeed turned out to be the case.
Higher educated people
About 10 percent of participants born between 1965 and 1985 received at least one psychiatric diagnosis between 2011 and 2016. But what was striking was that people with higher education received a psychiatric diagnosis significantly less often. And it turned out that each additional year of education was associated with a decrease in the risk of such a psychiatric diagnosis. For example, the risk of schizophrenia among highly educated people – or people who had been in school longer – could be up to 20 percent lower.
Previous research
In view of the scientific literature, this is not very surprising, says lead researcher Perline Demange. “There are many previous studies that suggest that individuals with a lower socio-economic status have poorer (mental) health. And our study confirms that.”
Brothers and sisters
But the research by Demange and colleagues goes one step further, by showing that education level – or more specifically: the number of years people have spent in school – plays a key role in this. The researchers can draw that conclusion quite convincingly because they have designed their study in a very clever way. For example, they did not just study 1.7 million Dutch people, but they consciously chose to study 1.7 million brothers and sisters – who together formed part of 766,000 Dutch families. These brothers and sisters have approximately the same starting position: they have the same parents, they have had the same upbringing, largely the same genes and they often grew up in the same school environment. This means that any differences in psychiatric health outcomes cannot be traced back to this. And that made it a lot easier to investigate whether the level or duration of education influences the risk of psychiatric problems. And the research consistently shows that each additional year of education is associated with a lower risk of psychiatric disorders.
The mechanism behind it
It hints that education somehow protects against psychiatric problems. Based on their study, researchers cannot explain exactly how education would ‘protect’. But they do have ideas about it. “Individuals who spend longer in school are more likely to have stable employment and higher incomes, so it may be that that economic stability and security protects them from developing psychiatric disorders. It is also possible that with longer education, individuals acquire more skills that protect them against psychiatric illness, such as habit formation, planning and prioritizing, and emotion regulation.” For now, these are hypotheses that will need to be further tested during further research.
Bipolar disorder and anorexia
For their study, the scientists not only studied a large number of Dutch people; they also looked at global genetic information. This confirmed the protective effect of education against psychiatric disorders, such as depression, post-traumatic stress syndrome and anxiety. But also hinted that more education may be associated with an increased risk of obsessive-compulsive disorder, bipolar disorder and anorexia nervosa. The fact that the researchers did not see this in their study among 1.7 million Dutch people can perhaps be explained by the way in which genetic research works. “When we analyzed the data from siblings, we looked at their actual level of education and whether a psychiatric diagnosis had actually been made,” Demange explains. “With the genetic method, however, we look at the chance that an individual will pursue higher education and the chance that an individual will be diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder.” And what genetic research shows is that people who have a high probability of obtaining a higher education have a lower risk of obsessive-compulsive disorder, bipolar disorder or anorexia. But within families – or among brothers and sisters among those 1.7 million Dutch people – the researchers do not see this. Siblings affected by obsessive-compulsive disorder, anorexia or bipolar disorder have, on average, less education than their brother or sister. It can probably be explained by the fact that in principle – in genes, through development or through personality traits – there is a positive relationship between school success and the chance of these diagnoses, but that actually experiencing mental problems disrupts education. “To give a concrete example, bipolar disorder is potentially associated with increased creativity and higher intelligence in childhood. These two qualities make it easier for a child to perform well at school and continue to receive education. But once these children begin to experience symptoms of bipolar disorder – usually during the teenage years – it is likely to disrupt their education: they show up less often at school, become less able to concentrate and may even eventually drop out.” And in practice, we do not see that predicted link between the disorder and educational level in the genes, or we even see that the brother or sister who has a diagnosis also left school earlier on average.
The research suggests that education has dual benefits. “By staying in school longer, individuals not only acquire knowledge and skills,” says co-author Elsje van Bergen. “But they can also develop resilience against psychiatric problems.” However, follow-up research must show how exactly education offers protection and whether it might be possible to offer the same protection to people who spend fewer years at school. “Once we better understand the protective effect that education has, we may be able to try to implement that effect earlier in education or in the work environment,” says Demange.
