Does Female Education Drive Health Convergence? Evidence from Under-Five Mortality in the European Union

Abstract

Female education is widely recognized as a cornerstone of sustainable development, with a well-established association with improved social and health outcomes, including reductions in child mortality. In this regard, global policy frameworks such as the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have placed strong emphasis on expanding access to education and achieving gender equality in educational attainment. However, despite its central role in development discourse, the extent to which female education contributes to the reduction of disparities in health outcomes remains insufficiently understood, particularly within the context of European Union (EU) convergence.

This paper investigates the role of female education in shaping development outcomes in the European Union (EU) by analyzing its impact on the convergence of under-five mortality rates across member states. Given persistent disparities in child mortality particularly between Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries and their Western European counterparts, the study employs a dynamic panel framework with fixed-effects estimations to assess whether higher levels of female education contribute to faster reductions in mortality gaps, and whether this relationship varies across EU regions over the period 2000–2023.

The results provide evidence of β-convergence in under-five mortality across EU countries, indicating a gradual narrowing of cross-country differences over time. However, contrary to conventional expectations, the interaction between female education and initial mortality levels is not statistically significant, suggesting that female education does not play a decisive role in shaping the speed of convergence. These findings are robust across model specifications, and there is no systematic evidence of differential effects between CEE and other EU member states.

These findings highlight an important challenge for education policy. While expanding female education remains essential for broader development objectives, our results suggest that improvements in educational attainment alone may not be sufficient to reduce disparities in key health outcomes. Rather, the contribution of education to social convergence appears to be contingent on broader structural and institutional conditions. The paper contributes to ongoing debates on the role of education in addressing complex and interconnected development challenges and recommends the need for policy approaches that align education with wider socioeconomic development policy frameworks.