Abstract
Several studies have focused on the association between parental and personal socioeconomic position (SEP) and health, with mixed results depending on the specific health outcome, research methodology and population under study. In the last decades, a growing interest is given to the influence of intergenerational mobility on several health outcomes at young ages. This study addresses the following research question: Is educational intergenerational mobility associated with all-cause and cause-specific mortality in young adulthood? To this end, the Belgian 1991 and 2001 censuses are used, providing characteristics of young persons at two time points (T1 = 01/03/91;T2 = 01/10/01) and follow-up information on mortality and emigration between T2 and 31/12/09 (T3). The study population consists of all official inhabitants of Flanders and the Brussels-Capital Region at T2, born between 1972 and 1982 and alive at T2. Parental and personal education are divided into primary (PE), lower secondary (LSE), higher secondary (HSE) and higher education (HE). We analyse mortality between T2 and T3 calculating age-standardised mortality rates (ASMRs) and using Cox regression (hazard ratios = HR). Personal rather than parental education determines the observed mortality rates, with high all-cause mortality rates among those with PE, irrespective of parental education (e.g., among men ASMRPE-PE = 200.0 [95% CI 158.0–241.9]; ASMRHE-PE = 319.7 [183.2–456.3]) and low all-cause mortality among those in higher education, regardless of parental education (ASMRPE-HE = 41.7 [30.8–52.6]; ASMRHE-HE = 38.0 [33.2–42.8]). There is some variation by gender and according to cause of death. This study shows the strong association between personal education and young-adult mortality.
Highlights
To what extent is the social background of your parents or your own socioeconomic position (SEP) most important in determining health outcomes in young adulthood? Numerous studies have focused on the association between parental and personal SEP and health, with mixed results depending on the specific health outcome, research methodology and population under study [1,2,3,4]
The different mobility patterns will be referred to starting with the abbreviation of the parental education, followed by personal education (e.g. primary education (PE)-higher secondary education (HSE): young adult with primary-educated parents who completed higher-secondary education)
In answer to our first research question, the results showed that it is personal rather than parental education that is associated with inequalities in young-adult mortality
Summary
To what extent is the social background of your parents or your own socioeconomic position (SEP) most important in determining health outcomes in young adulthood? Numerous studies have focused on the association between parental and personal SEP and health, with mixed results depending on the specific health outcome, research methodology and population under study [1,2,3,4]. Research of Deboosere, Gadeyne, Charafeddine & Van Oyen [9] found an impact for both parental and personal education on self-rated health in Belgium, but with a more profound association of the latter. This paper deepens this earlier study through exploring to what extent an association does exist between intergenerational educational mobility and young-adult mortality in Belgium, which is the main research question of this study. Several authors have demonstrated that education is strongly linked to different health outcomes in young adulthood [6,10,11] and that education affects other measures of SEP later in life such as income and occupation [12,13,14]. Education is considered the most relevant indicator for SEP at a young age [17] and will be the focus of this study
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