By prioritizing physical activity and healthy habits, education policies can create lasting benefits for population health
Education systems serve many purposes beyond preparing students for the labour market. One important but often overlooked role is their potential to shape lifelong health and healthy behaviours. In our recent IZA Discussion Paper, we show that the strong emphasis placed on physical activity and health in Soviet communist education systems had lasting positive effects on population health, despite the broader economic and institutional failures of those regimes.
Our analysis compares European cohorts exposed to different lengths of compulsory schooling, exploiting reforms that changed the minimum years of education. We contrast the health effects of additional schooling obtained under Soviet communist regimes with those of additional schooling in non-communist contexts, including post-communist and Western European countries. We find that an extra year of education leads to significantly larger improvements in long-term health outcomes when it was received under Soviet communist education systems. These effects are observed for self-reported health and the prevalence of chronic illness, and they are particularly strong for men.
The main mechanism behind this difference is physical activity. Soviet education systems placed exceptional importance on compulsory physical education, organized sports and active lifestyles. Students were required to attend regular physical education classes, had access to extracurricular sports activities and were provided with equipment and facilities, even in rural and peripheral areas. Schools also played a role in promoting hygiene and preventive health, often ensuring access to basic medical services. Together, these policies created an environment in which healthy habits could be formed early and persist throughout life.
We also find that education under communism had stronger effects on behaviours closely linked to health. For men, an additional year of communist education reduced the duration of regular smoking by about 25% and excessive alcohol consumption by roughly 15%. For women, smoking declined by about 27%, while alcohol consumption showed little change. Most notably, the increase in physical activity associated with communist education is substantially larger than that associated with non-communist education. An additional year of schooling under communism raises the frequency of moderate physical activity by about 1.3% for men and 1.9% for women, over and above the effects observed in other education systems.
An important feature to highlight is gender equality in physical education. In Soviet schools, girls were expected to participate in physical activities on the same basis as boys. This contrasts with social norms in many countries in the cohorts under study where girls were discouraged from athletic pursuits, which might have hampered their participation in physical education and weakened their long-term physical activity.
These results are striking given the well-documented inefficiencies of communist health care systems, which often suffered from poor quality and limited access. While these systems struggled to prevent cardiovascular and other chronic diseases, the education system helped offset some of these shortcomings by promoting active lifestyles and preventive health behaviors. In this sense, communist education acted as a substitute for a weaker access to health care technologies later in life.
The broader lesson is that what students learn—and practice—in school matters well beyond graduation. Education policies that prioritize physical activity and healthy habits can have lasting benefits for population health. This insight remains highly relevant today, as many countries reconsider the role of schools in promoting not only academic success, but also long-term well-being.
© Joan Costa-Font and Anna Nicinska
Joan Costa-Font is Professor of Health Economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), London, and IZA@LISER Research Fellow
Anna Nicinska is Associate Professor at University of Warsaw, Poland
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We recognize that World of Labour articles may prompt discussion and possibly controversy. Opinion pieces, such as the one above, capture ideas and debates concisely, and anchor them with real-world examples. Opinions stated here do not necessarily reflect those of the LISER.
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