Educational Attainment of Norwegian Men: Influence of Parental and Early Individual Characteristics

Abstract

The life course perspective in social inequalities in health research has resulted in an increased interest in status attainment processes. Adult status is commonly measured as occupational class, income level or educational attainment, and the latter was applied in this study. The study objective was to estimate the relative contribution of parental and early individual characteristics on educational attainment. The study population comprised all males born in Norway in 1967-1971, and alive at age 28 years (n=160,914). Data on social and biological variables were compiled from birth onwards in several national registers. Information on educational attainment at age 28 years was derived from Statistics Norway. Mean years of education was 12.62 years (SD 2.24). Educational attainment was strongly associated with general ability score at age 18 years and parental educational attainment. Parental income had more limited influence; all other early factors had only marginal effect. Path analysis results suggest that the direct effect of general ability was of the same size as the combined direct and indirect effect of parental education and income. The results suggest that status attainment in this young male population is mainly dependent on general ability and parental education level.

Personal predictors of educational attainment after compulsory school: Influence of measures of vulnerability, health, and school performance

“…Low family income and low parental education also decreased chances of having completed a secondary education while no association was found for not living with two parents at age 14/15. Previous studies have described school performance to be positively related to educational attainment [9,10]. The present study indicates that school performance in terms of grades in oral Danish and written maths are essential for the transition from compulsory school into secondary education.…”

“…The oral Danish and written maths exam grades after compulsory school (9th grade) were used. Before September 2007, grades were given using the so-called 13-point scale (00, 03, 5,6,7,8,9,10,11,13). A dichotomous variable indicating "high grades" (8-13 equivalent to B+ and above) and "low grades" (00-7) was generated.…”

Adult social position and sick leave: the mediating effect of physical workload

“…First, the causal interpretation of our findings rests on the assumptions of the mediation analysis not being violated (8). The assumption of no confounding on the direct and indirect pathway is threatened by our lack of indicators of childhood and adolescent health, as early health is associated with adult health (42) and educational attainment in adulthood (15); as a result, the association between adult social position on sick leave, via physical workload, could still be somewhat overestimated. We did have data on overall health measured at the time of study inclusion in HUNT3, but, in our opinion, poor health measured at this time point could have been the result of ongoing exposure to high physical workload rather than a cause of it.…”

“…The rationale for considering these factors is drawn from two bodies of literature. The first is evidence from epidemiology showing that childhood and adolescent social position directly influences educational attainment (15) while also directly and independently influencing health outcomes, including morbidity (16) and work disability (17,18). Childhood and adolescent social position could therefore be driving individuals into both lower adult social position and poor health, thereby confounding the relation between adult social position and sick leave.…”

An Anatomy of Intergenerational Transmission: Learning from the educational attainments of Norwegian twins and their children

“…Genetic inheritance may contribute to the intergenerational correlation in education in several ways. The most obvious form of genetic inheritance involves cognitive ability: A trait that is highly heritable (Rowe, Vesterdal, and Rodgers 1998), and itself a major predictor of educational attainment (Kristensen, Gravseth, and Bjerkedal 2009). The same type of argument can be extended to other traits, including (but not limited to) mental health, non-cognitive skills, and personality differences.…”