Offspring Educational Attainment Research Articles

Parental Birth Order and the First Stage of Tracking Into Schools: Evidence From General Upper Secondary Educational Attainment in Finland

ABSTRACTNo previous study on the interrelation between parental birth order and offspring educational attainment has analysed the first stage of tracking into schools, which in many countries is highly selective of persons who aim for university studies. We do so and examine how parental birth order is associated with attainment of general upper secondary education in Finland. Three‐generational register data on the total population are used to assess how the probability of having the matriculation examination at age 20 is associated with parental birth order. The total number of individuals in the child generation is 377,038. We find that the probability of having the matriculation examination decreases with parental birth order. Within‐family analyses using cousin fixed effects models, which account for unobserved characteristics in the extended family, show that having later‐born parents, and in particular a later‐born father, is negatively associated with first tracking into schools. These patterns can solely be attributed to the fact that earlier‐born parents are highly educated and found in higher social classes than later‐born parents. The results largely corroborate findings from similar analyses of length of schooling in Sweden, although the contribution of parental education and social class is notably stronger in our study context.

Household Income and Offspring Education Explain Blacks' Diminished Returns of Parental Education.

High parental education promotes various aspects of offspring well-being including reducing their risk of depression/anxiety, criminal justice involvement, and welfare reliance. However, according to minorities' diminished returns, these benefits are not equal across racial groups, with Black families experiencing diminished returns of parental education compared to White families. This study explores the role of household income and offspring educational attainment as potential serial pathways that operate as mechanisms underlying diminished returns of parental education on offspring outcomes in Black families. Gender differences in these effects were also explored. Utilizing data from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS) over a 22-year follow-up period (seven waves), we examined the serial mediation by household income and offspring educational attainment in explaining the relationship between parental education and offspring outcomes namely depression, anxiety, criminal justice involvement, and welfare reliance [Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)]. We used structural equation modeling (SEM) with household income as the first mediator and young adult education as the second mediator. Multi-group models were used to explore gender differences in these paths. The study confirmed the role of our proposed serial mediators for Blacks' weaker effects of parental education on offspring outcomes. We observed weaker effects of first affects household income, with this effect being for Black families compared to White families, which then impacted educational attainment of the offspring. The findings indicate that household income plays a crucial mediating role, but its effect is weaker in Black families. Additionally, the educational attainment of offspring from highly educated Black parents is less effective in improving outcomes compared to their White peers, further contributing to diminished returns. Some gender differences were observed for the effects of educational attainment on economic and health outcomes of young adults. The study underscores the need to reconsider traditional assumptions about the comparability of family conditions and outcomes across racial groups with similar levels of parental education. The findings highlight the importance of targeted policies and interventions aimed at enhancing the economic stability and educational outcomes of Black families to address these disparities. Policies should focus on promoting the economic well-being of highly educated Black parents and improving the educational outcomes of their children.

Intergenerational Educational (Im)mobility Among Those Born in the United States, 1940 to 1990

This visualization highlights patterns of intergenerational educational immobility across five birth cohorts in the United States. Namely, a strong link is observed between parent and offspring educational attainment that has remained largely stable over the years. The author discusses the challenges of achieving equality of educational opportunity in the United States in light of the relative nature of educational credentials.

Maternal high body mass index, but not gestational diabetes, is associated with poorer educational attainment in mid-childhood

Previous studies suggest that gestational diabetes mellitus is associated with poorer cognitive outcomes in children. However, confounding factors, especially maternal body mass index, have been poorly accounted for. This study aimed to examine the independent associations between maternal body mass index, gestational diabetes mellitus status, and educational outcomes. Antenatal data from a prospective birth cohort (Pregnancy Outcome Prediction Study, 2008-2012, Cambridge, United Kingdom) were linked to mid-childhood educational outcomes (Department for Education, United Kingdom). A total of 3249 children born at term were stratified by maternal gestational diabetes mellitus status and body mass index at booking (<25 vs ≥25 kg/m2). Regression models adjusted for relevant maternal, child, and socioeconomic factors were used to determine associations with academic outcomes at ages of 5 to 7 years. No differences in educational attainment were found between children exposed to gestational diabetes mellitus and nonexposed children. Neither maternal glucose levels measured at 11 to 14 or 24 to 28 weeks, nor acceleration of the fetal abdominal circumference growth velocity were related to educational attainment at ages of 5 to 7 years. Children of mothers with booking body mass index ≥25 kg/m2 (vs <25 kg/m2) were ∼50% more likely to not meet expected educational standards regardless of gestational diabetes mellitus status (age 5: adjusted odds ratio, 1.44; 95% confidence interval, 1.19-1.74; P<.001; age 6: adjusted odds ratio, 1.61; 95% confidence interval, 1.28-2.02; P<.001). The association between maternal body mass index and offspring educational attainment is dose-dependent and robust to stratification by gestational diabetes mellitus status and adjustment for socioeconomic factors. Mid-childhood educational attainment is not associated with maternal glucose status. This may provide important reassurance for pregnant women and clinicians. However, maternal body mass index is associated with lower childhood educational attainment and may be modifiable with intervention before or during pregnancy.

Parents' early experience and children's years of schooling: The long-term impact of son preference

It is well documented that years of schooling are largely influenced by the family. However, few studies have examined the intergenerational effect of individuals' early experience on their offspring's educational attainment. Using China's 1959–1961 famine as an exogenous shock, we construct a difference-in-difference model based on different famine severities across provinces and cohorts. We find that daughters of rural famine fathers have lower educational attainment. Mechanism analysis shows that male famine survivors are more likely to be observed in families with a strong son preference, which is passed on to their daughters and damages their educational attainment. The effect is more pronounced especially when the daughter is not an only child, has a brother, or the second child in the family is a son. The above results are robust to different specifications and alternative measures, suggesting that individuals' early experience may negatively affect the offspring's educational attainment through an entrenched cultural concept.

Black-White Differences in Offspring Educational Attainment and Older Parents' Dementia.

Emerging research documents the health benefits of having highly educated adult offspring. Yet less is known about whether those advantages vary across racial groups. This study examines how offspring education is tied to parents' dementia risk for Black and White parents in the United States. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study, findings suggest that children's education does not account for the Black-White gap in dementia risk. However, results confirm that parental race moderates the relationship between children's education and dementia risk and that the association between children's education and parents' dementia risk is strongest among less-educated parents. Among less-educated parents, higher levels of children's attainment prevent the risk of dementia onset for Black parents, but low levels of offspring schooling increase dementia risk among White parents. The study highlights how offspring education shapes the cognitive health of social groups differently and points to new avenues for future research.

Examining social genetic effects on educational attainment via parental educational attainment, income, and parenting.

Higher parental educational attainment is associated with higher offspring educational attainment. In this study, we incorporated genotypic and phenotypic information from fathers, mothers, and offspring to disentangle the genetic and socioenvironmental pathways underlying this association. Data were drawn from a sample of individuals of European ancestry from the collaborative study on the genetics of alcoholism (n = 4,089; 51% female). Results from path analysis indicated that paternal and maternal educational attainment genome-wide polygenic scores were associated with offspring educational attainment, above and beyond the effect of offspring education polygenic score. Parental educational attainment, income, and parenting behaviors served as important socioenvironmental pathways that mediated the effect of parental education polygenic score on offspring educational attainment. Our study highlights the importance of using genetically informed family studies to disentangle the genetic and socioenvironmental pathways underlying parental influences on human development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

The reach of fertility decline: a longitudinal analysis of human capital gains across generations

The impact of fertility decline on economic development remains central to population studies. Recent scholarship emphasizes parental investment in education as a mediator. We further develop the theoretical foundation, and empirical evidence, for the role of child health—specifically how fertility changes promote children’s physical and cognitive development and thereby complement human capital accumulation through educational gains. We test this using a two-generation model applied to Indonesian longitudinal data from 1993 to 2015. Characteristics of modern fertility regimes—older maternal ages, longer interpregnancy intervals, and lower average birth orders—generally benefit offspring cognitive development and schooling. We estimate that family planning expansion, and the resulting shift in fertility traits, induced an average increase of 0.34 years of offspring educational attainment by age 18 years. Maximal maternal educational and family planning expansion would jointly produce a 1.12-year gain, including 0.20 years more directly attributable to fertility shifts. Evidence is strengthened in parallel simulations from models of within-mother shifts, in which fertility shifts resulted in a 0.16-year gain in offspring schooling. Findings contribute new evidence for the rounding effects of women’s education and family planning expansion on human capital formation through child health within families and across generations.

Using adopted individuals to partition indirect maternal genetic effects into prenatal and postnatal effects on offspring phenotypes.

Maternal genetic effects can be defined as the effect of a mother's genotype on the phenotype of her offspring, independent of the offspring's genotype. Maternal genetic effects can act via the intrauterine environment during pregnancy and/or via the postnatal environment. In this manuscript, we present a simple extension to the basic adoption design that uses structural equation modelling (SEM) to partition maternal genetic effects into prenatal and postnatal effects. We examine the power, utility and type I error rate of our model using simulations and asymptotic power calculations. We apply our model to polygenic scores of educational attainment and birth weight associated variants, in up to 5,178 adopted singletons, 943 trios, 2687 mother-offspring pairs, 712 father-offspring pairs and 347,980 singletons from the UK Biobank. Our results show the expected pattern of maternal genetic effects on offspring birth weight, but unexpectedly large prenatal maternal genetic effects on offspring educational attainment. Sensitivity and simulation analyses suggest this result may be at least partially due to adopted individuals in the UK Biobank being raised by their biological relatives. We show that accurate modelling of these sorts of cryptic relationships is sufficient to bring type I error rate under control and produce asymptotically unbiased estimates of prenatal and postnatal maternal genetic effects. We conclude that there would be considerable value in following up adopted individuals in the UK Biobank to determine whether they were raised by their biological relatives, and if so, to precisely ascertain the nature of these relationships. These adopted individuals could then be incorporated into informative statistical genetics models like the one described in our manuscript to further elucidate the genetic architecture of complex traits and diseases.

Intergenerational transmission of body mass index and associations with educational attainment

BackgroundIndividual differences in educational attainment (EA) and physical health, as indexed by body mass index (BMI), are correlated within persons and across generations. The present aim was to assess these associations while controlling for parental transmission.MethodsWe analyzed BMI and EA obtained for 8,866 families from the Netherlands. Data were available for 19,132 persons, including 6,901 parents (mean age 54) and 12,234 of their adult offspring (mean age 32). We employed structural equation modeling to simultaneously model the direct and indirect transmission of BMI and EA from parents to offspring, spousal correlations, and the residual within-person BMI-EA association and tested for gender differences in the transmission parameters.ResultsWe found moderate intergeneration transmission for BMI (standardized beta ~ .20) and EA (~ .22), and substantial spousal correlations for BMI (.23) and EA (.51). Cross-trait parent to offspring transmission was weak. The strength of transmission was largely independent of parent or offspring gender. Negative within person EA-BMI correlations were observed for all family members (fathers, -0.102; mothers, -0.147; sons, -0.154; daughters, -0.173). About 60% of the EA-BMI correlation in offspring persisted after taking into account the intergeneration transmission.ConclusionsThe intergenerational transmission for BMI and EA is mainly predictive within traits. Significant spousal and within person correlations in the parental generation are responsible for the effect of parental EA on offspring BMI. Offspring EA and BMI are further correlated beyond parental influences.

Parental criminality and children's educational attainment: A population-based extended family study

ObjectivesWe examine how parental criminality is associated with offspring education at different educational stages from primary to tertiary education and conduct separate analyses for non-violent and violent crimes and incarceration, and for paternal and maternal criminality. MethodsWe use Swedish total population register data of 513,886 children and their parents and estimate both population-level linear probability models and cousin fixed-effects models. ResultsParental criminality was negatively associated with all stages of offspring education. In population-level models accounting for parental education, the strongest associations were observed for parental violent crimes and incarceration with offspring secondary education completion (beta: −0.16 to −0.18). Cousin fixed-effects models suggested that family-level unobserved heterogeneity played a role in the associations as they were reduced when analyzing cousins differently exposed to parental criminality. ConclusionsParental criminality is negatively associated with offspring educational attainment, and the associations are in part due to shared familial factors. The association is different at different educational stages and for parental violent vs. non-violent crime.

Offspring Education and Parents' Health Inequality in China: Evidence from Spillovers of Education Reform.

In the context of a rapidly aging population, improving the parents’ health outcomes, especially in parents with poorer health, is essential for narrowing elderly health inequality. Using data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, we took the university enrollment expansion policy as the instrumental variable and employed the two-stage least square (2SLS) and instrumental variable quantile regression (IVQR) approaches to explore the spillovers of offspring education on the elderly parents’ frailty index. The results show that one additional year of offspring educational attainment was associated with a 0.017 or 4.66% decline in the parents’ frailty index. These spillovers are stronger where parents are cohabiting with their children than when separating (more than 2 times higher). Moreover, there is substantial heterogeneity that is determined by the gender of parents. The spillover on mothers is greater than that on fathers. Further analysis of a cohort of parents with different frailty indexes reveals that the upward spillovers of offspring education on parents’ health are non-linear and non-averaged. The spillovers may diminish as parents own health improves. These spillovers suppress the “Matthew Effect”, which can lead to the further widening of health inequality.

The Health Effect of the Number of Children on Chinese Elders: An Analysis Based on Hukou Category.

Based on the 2018 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS 2018), from the perspective of urban-rural disparity, this paper investigates how fertility affects Chinese elders' health. We exploit the enactment of the one-child policy in 1979 to construct instrumental variables capturing the health effect of having only one child rather than multiple children. The empirical results show that the health condition of rural elders having only one child is worse than elders having multiple children, while the negative health effect of lower fertility becomes statistically insignificant for urban elderly parents. After considering the selection on both levels and gains, the results are still robust in marginal treatment effect (MTE) estimation. We investigate the potential mechanism in four ways, the results suggest that having only one child instead of multiple children depresses the upstream intergenerational transfer payments more for rural parents; ameliorates offspring's educational attainment more for urban parents; improves housing conditions more for urban elders; and decreases the visit frequency of children to both urban and rural parents. Our findings have important implications, in the context of increasing population aging, the urban-rural inequality caused by the hukou system has been magnified by the declining fertility rate. The Chinese government should pay more attention to rural elders with only one child, and more public-funded socioeconomic resources are needed for one-child parents in rural areas to improve their health. Moreover, the empirical results also imply that urbanization in China may be able to soften the health deterrent effect of lower fertility.

Educational mobility across three generations of Finnish-speaking and Swedish-speaking Finns

Using total population register data that link three generations, this article studies educational mobility in two native ethno-linguistic groups, Finnish speakers and Swedish speakers in Finland. The purpose is to examine how multigenerational educational mobility takes form in a setting with equal constitutional rights, but with relatively more study places in Swedish at the tertiary level. For the cohorts born 1976–1985, the probability of having a tertiary-level education is 5.6 % points higher for Swedish-speaking men than for Finnish-speaking men, while the difference in women is 8.2 % points. The estimated effects of parents’ and grandparents’ tertiary-level education on offspring educational attainment are largely the same in both ethno-linguistic groups. Compositional differences contribute considerably, however. For men, 41 % of the ethno-linguistic difference in the probability of having tertiary-level education can be attributed to parents’ education, and another 13 % to grandparents’ education. Corresponding numbers for women are 23 % and 5 %, respectively. In the public debate, it should be highlighted that all study places in Swedish in Finland are open to persons with adequate skills in the language, and that they serve to meet the national needs for a sufficient number of persons proficient in Swedish.

Educational attainment of offspring and obesity among older adults in China

The study focuses on the role of adult offspring's educational attainment in obesity among older adults in China and investigates age and birth cohort heterogeneities in the educational effect. Using the longitudinal data from the 1993–2015 China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS), we employed three-level mixed-effects models and conducted sex-stratified analyses to examine the effects of co-resident offspring's education on body mass index (BMI), overweight, waist circumference (WC), and abdominal obesity among older people born before 1956. After controlling for confounding factors, the overall results showed inverted U-shaped educational gradients in BMI-based outcomes for males and positive gradients for females. The effect of education on WC exhibited an inverted U-shaped pattern for both sexes, but no significant effect on abdominal obesity was found among the overall population. However, further analyses of interaction effects indicated considerable age and cohort variations in the educational effects on obesity outcomes. Offspring's schooling was positively associated with obesity among earlier birth cohorts; Among more recent birth cohorts, especially among females, the educational effects were reversed, and disparities in obesity outcomes across education categories strengthened with age. These findings imply that offspring's education appears to gradually exert a protective role against obesity among Chinese older adults in successive cohorts.

The impact of parental mental health problems on the educational outcomes of their offspring: Findings from the Raine Study.

There is limited evidence on the impact of parental mental health problems on offspring's educational outcomes. We investigated the impact of maternal anxiety and depressive symptoms, as well as paternal emotional problems on the educational outcomes of their adolescent and young adult offspring. We used data from a longitudinal birth cohort recruited between 1989 and 1991 in Australia (the Raine Study). The Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale was used to assess maternal depressive and anxiety symptoms, and a self-reported question was used to measure paternal mental health problems. Both were assessed when the offspring was aged 10 years. Outcomes included offspring's self-reported education attainment-not completing year 10 at age 17, not attending tertiary education at ages 17 and 22 and primary caregiver's reports of offspring's academic performance at age 17. A total of 1033, 1307 and 1364 parent-offspring pairs were included in the final analysis exploring the association between parental mental health problems and offspring's academic performance at school, completing year 10 and attending tertiary education, respectively. After adjusting for potential confounders, the offspring of mothers with anxiety symptoms were 3.42 times more likely than the offspring of mothers without anxiety symptoms to have poor or below-average academic performance (odds ratio = 3.42; 95% confidence interval = [1.31, 8.92]) and more than 2 times more likely to not attend tertiary education (odds ratio = 2.55; 95% confidence interval = [1.10, 5.5.88]) and not to have completed year 10 (odds ratio = 2.13; 95% confidence interval = [1.04, 4.33]). We found no significant associations between maternal depressive symptoms or paternal emotional problems and offspring educational attainment. Maternal anxiety symptoms, but not depression and paternal emotional problems, are associated with poor educational attainment and achievement in adolescent offspring. The findings highlight that efforts to improve the outcomes of offspring of mothers with anxiety could focus on educational attainment.

Adult Children’s Educational Attainment and Parent Health in Mid- and Later-Life

AbstractObjectivesIntergenerational models of adult health contend that children’s educational attainments influence the health and well-being of their parents. However, it is unclear how much of this association is confounded by background characteristics that predict both children’s educational attainments and parents’ subsequent health, particularly in the United States.MethodsData from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health Parent Study are used to examine how having no children who completed college influences parents’ self-rated health and depressive symptoms. We rely on propensity score methods to more squarely assess this relationship net of potential confounding bias and to test for heterogeneity in the consequences associated with having no children who completed college.ResultsHaving no children who completed college is negatively associated with parents’ self-rated health and positively associated with depressive symptoms. After statistically balancing differences in background characteristics between groups, these associations remain, though the magnitude of the coefficients is attenuated. Supplemental matching analyses suggest that while the association between children’s education and self-rated health might be spurious, the association with depressive symptoms is more robust. Additionally, among parents with the highest propensity for having no children who complete college, the consequences on depressive symptoms are greatest.DiscussionThis study pays particular attention to selection-related concerns surrounding the association between offspring educational attainment and parent well-being in the United States. These findings are important given the call for investments in children’s educational opportunities as promoting both the well-being of adult children and their parents.

Individual's cultural capital: Intergenerational transmission, partner effect, or individual merit?

For decades, social stratification research has focused on the effect of families’ cultural capital on their offspring's educational attainment. However, few studies have focused on the shaping of individuals’ cultural capital. This study aimed to examine the effects of family background, individual, partner, and household characteristics on individuals’ reading preferences and cultural participation. Structural equation modeling was applied to Czech Household Panel Survey (CHPS) data (N = 6,040). The results revealed the different social mechanisms responsible for cultural tastes and participation. While reading preferences are affected by individual characteristics and aspects of the family of origin, cultural participation is influenced by educational level and own cultural preferences, which outweighed the direct effect of family background. Furthermore, the individuals’ cultural behavior was also possibly affected by their partners’ cultural behavior, which was almost as strong factor as their own cultural preferences. In this respect, our results did not show any significant gender differences.

Adult child socio-economic status disadvantage and cognitive decline among older parents in Mexico

There is growing interest in the contribution of offspring educational attainment to parents' health outcomes. However, less is known about the impacts of offspring socio-economic status (SES) on parents' cognitive decline or about the role of offspring SES disadvantage. We used data from the Mexican Health and Aging Study (n = 10,426) to evaluate the impact of adult child SES disadvantage on parents' verbal memory trajectories over fourteen years (2001–2015). We estimated linear mixed models and used measures of adult child SES (educational, financial, and employment) disadvantage. Our most robust finding was that having an adult child with less than secondary education was associated with faster decline in verbal memory z-scores for older women (β: −0.009 [95% CI: −0.01, −0.001]) and men (β: −0.01 [95% CI: −0.02, −0.01]). Although poor adult child financial well-being was associated with a faster decline in parents' verbal memory z-scores, this finding was less consistent across model specifications. Additional analyses also suggested some evidence of heterogeneity by parents' own educational attainment and gender. These findings highlight the potential importance of children's socio-economic status for the cognitive aging of their older parents.

Offspring Educational Attainment and Older Parents' Cognition in Mexico.

Population-level disparities in later-life cognitive health point to the importance of family resources. Although the bulk of prior work establishes the directional flow of resources from parents to offspring, the "linked lives" perspective raises the question of how offspring resources could affect parental health as well. This paper examines whether adult children's education influences older parents' (aged 50+) cognitive health in Mexico, where schooling reforms have contributed to significant gains in the educational achievements of recent birth cohorts. Harnessing a change in compulsory school laws and applying an instrumental variables approach, we found that each year of offspring schooling was associated with higher overall cognition among parents, but was less predictive across different cognitive functioning domains. More offspring schooling improved parents' cognitive abilities in verbal learning, verbal fluency, and orientation, but not in visual scanning, visuo-spatial ability, or visual memory. The beneficial effects of offspring schooling on those cognitive domains are more salient for mothers compared to fathers, suggesting potential gendered effects in the influence of offspring schooling. The results remained robust to controls for parent-child contact and geographic proximity, suggesting other avenues through which offspring education could affect parental health and a pathway for future research. Our findings contribute to growing research which stresses the causal influence of familial educational attainment on population health.