Children’s educational attainment, occupation, and income and their parents’ mortality

Abstract

Using data from Finland, this paper contributes to a small but growing body of research regarding adult children's education, occupation, and income and their parents' mortality at ages 50+ in 1970-2007. Higher levels of children's education are associated with 30-36 per cent lower parental mortality at ages 50-75, controlling for parents' education, occupation, and income. This association is fully mediated by children's occupation and income, except for cancer mortality. Having at least one child educated in healthcare is associated with 11-16 per cent lower all-cause mortality at ages 50-75, an association that is largely driven by mortality from cardiovascular diseases. Children's higher white-collar occupation and higher income is associated with 39-46 per cent lower mortality in the fully adjusted models. At ages 75+, these associations are much smaller overall and children's schooling remains more strongly associated with mortality than children's occupation or income.

Children’s education and parental old-age health: Evidence from a population-based, nationally representative study in India

“…The association later in life may be weakened by, for instance, selective survival of the healthiest parents (Friedman and Mare 2014). These findings add to the notion of increasing age 'levelling out' intergenerational transfers (Friedman and Mare 2014; Zimmer et al 2016;Elo et al 2018;Yahirun et al 2020) and gender disparities in health (Ross and Bird 1994). This study has a number of policy implications.…”

“…On the other hand, the advantages of children's education for parental old-age health may 'cumulate' over a parent's life course, leading to larger differences in health by children's education as parents age (Ross and Wu 1996;Dannefer 2003). While a considerable amount of evidence suggests that age may be a leveller in high-income settings (Friedman and Mare 2014;Zimmer et al 2016;Elo et al 2018;Wolfe et al 2018;Sabater et al 2019;Yahirun et al 2020), relatively little is known about the age gradient in low-resource settings. Similarly, the benefits of children's education may also vary by geographical region.…”

“…Evidence on the health benefits of children's education for older generations dates back to at least the early 2000s (Zimmer et al 2002). Since then, a consistent positive association has been identified between children's education and a wide range of parental health outcomes, including: (1) parental mortality (Torssander 2013;Friedman and Mare 2014;Elo et al 2018;Smith-Greenaway et al 2018;Wolfe et al 2018;Sabater et al 2019); (2) parental physical health (Yahirun et al 2016(Yahirun et al , 2017Meyer et al 2019); and (3) parental mental health (Sabater and Graham 2016;Lee 2018;Peng et al 2019;Yahirun et al 2020). These associations persist after controlling for parents' demographic and socio-economic characteristics (De Neve and Kawachi 2017).…”

Does having highly educated adult children reduce mortality risks for parents with low educational attainment in Europe?

“…Thus, in order to complement the growing literature concerning upward health transfers, our analyses consider the benefits of adult children's education relative to the level of education of their parents for respondents in two age groups (50–74 and 75+). This consideration is important as most previous studies, with the exceptions of Zimmer et al (2016) and Elo et al (2018), do not differentiate among older age groups despite age being significantly associated with a higher risk of dying. Research question 3: Are the associations between having highly educated adult children and the mortality risks of fathers and mothers (partly) explained by parents’ health behaviour and health status? …”

“…Nevertheless, a few recent studies from North America and Europe have reported a protective association between adult children's education and parental health (Torssander, 2013, 2014; Friedman and Mare, 2014; Zimmer et al , 2016; Elo et al , 2018). Friedman and Mare's (2014) work in the USA showed that parents of well-educated children live longer than do other parents, even after controlling for parents’ own socio-economic resources.…”