The Impact of Education on Dementia? Causal Evidence from Compulsory Schooling Reforms in England (ELSA)

What is the causal effect of schooling on old age cognition and dementia? 

In this study, we contribute on this question by re-examining two British compulsory schooling reforms that yields large-scale and quasi-experimental variation in schooling. 

The first reform increased the minimum school leaving age from 14 to 15 in 1947. The second reform increased the minimum school leaving age by another year in 1972. 

We show that the additional schooling induced by the reform had close to zero impact on a range of cognitive outcomes and dementia risks.