Abstract
ObjectivesOur understanding of how societal conditions and educational policies influence cognitive development across the life course is improving. We tested the extent to which inequality of educational opportunity (IEO), the country- and cohort-specific correlation of parents' and their offspring's length of schooling, offers systematically different opportunities to contribute to cognitive development, which in turn influences cognitive abilities up to older ages. MethodsA total of 46,972 individuals of three cohorts born 1940–63 from 16 European countries and Israel provided up to six cognitive assessments and information on covariates in the SHARE survey 2004–2017. Individual-level data were linked to indicators of IEO at time of schooling, and economic, health, and human development, provided by World Bank, WHO, and the UN. ResultsIn multilevel (mixed-effects) models with random individual and country-cohort effects and adjusted for a large set of confounders, higher IEO was associated with lower levels of cognitive functioning in men and women. Interaction analyses suggested lower cognitive levels particularly of women who were schooled in higher IEO contexts and had lower educational attainment. Associations with rate of change in cognitive functioning were present only in women, however there was little clinically relevant cognitive decline across the window of observation. Result patterns were mostly consistent after including additional contextual indicators, and in a subsample with childhood information. DiscussionFindings suggest that IEO is able to substantially influence cognitive development with long-lasting impacts. Lower-educated women of the cohorts under investigation may have been particularly vulnerable to high-inequality educational contexts.
Highlights
Unimpaired cognitive functioning is an important determinant of healthy aging and is shaped from very early ages on (Richards & Hatch, 2011)
From a contextual perspective, schooling systems have been identified as important determinants of cognitive skills in childhood and adolescence, the role of which can be conceptualized with inequality of educational opportunity to explain student cognitive outcomes (Burger, 2016; Gamoran & Mare, 1989)
Inequality of educational opportunity (IEO) describes the extent to which schooling opportunities depend on social origins, i.e. parental educational or socioeconomic background, rather than student cognitive skills
Summary
Unimpaired cognitive functioning is an important determinant of healthy aging and is shaped from very early ages on (Richards & Hatch, 2011). From a contextual perspective, schooling systems have been identified as important determinants of cognitive skills in childhood and adolescence, the role of which can be conceptualized with inequality of educational opportunity to explain student cognitive outcomes (Burger, 2016; Gamoran & Mare, 1989). IEO is measured by the country- and cohort-specific correlation between length of schooling of members of a birth cohort and that of their parents (Rotman et al, 2016). To this date, little is known about how far-reaching into adulthood and older age the effects of IEO on cognitive functioning are, if levels of IEO at time of schooling systematically influence cognitive functioning in later mid- and older adulthood
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