Educational Attainment and Morality: An Empirical Study

Abstract

I use ordinary least squares regression with year and region of birth fixed effects to estimate the relationship between educational attainment and morality. Morality is broken into six categories. I find statistically significant and sizable relationships between educational attainment and individuals' perceptions of morality, moral reasoning, moral attitudes towards personal or private conduct, and moral attitudes towards citizens' relationship with government. I find mixed results concerning education's relationship with moral attitudes towards responsibility and loyalty. I do not find a statistically significant relationship between educational attainment and moral attitudes towards economic inequality. I further analyze the different levels of education and find that college education drives the relationships found for cumulative educational attainment. Elementary education has no significant relationship with morality in any category of morality. High school education has a statistically significant relationship with some indicators of morality, but not others, across the categories of morality. Postgraduate education exhibits similar outcomes to college education on moral attitudes towards private action. It also exhibits a statistically significant relationship with moral attitudes towards government - in some cases similar to the relationship between college education and these attitudes, and in other cases diametrically opposed to that relationship.