Increased adult child schooling and older parents' health behaviors in Europe: A quasi-experimental study. (September 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Torres, Jacqueline M.; Yang, Yulin; Rudolph, Kara E.; Courtin, Emilie
• Is Part Of: SSM - population health. Volume 19(2022)
• Publication Date: 2022-09
• Subjects: Lifecourse epidemiology -- Intergenerational influences -- Socio-economic status -- Health behaviors -- Quasi-experimental methods; CSL Compulsory Schooling Law -- BMI Body Mass Index -- 2SLS Two-Stage Least Squares Regression -- SES Socio-economic Status; Social medicine -- Periodicals; Medical anthropology -- Periodicals; Public health -- Periodicals; Psychology -- Periodicals; Medicine -- Periodicals; 362.105
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ssmph.2022.101162
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2352-8273

Abstract

Abstract: There is growing evidence that adult child educational attainment is associated with older parents' physical health and longevity. Scholars have hypothesized that these associations may be driven by health-behavior pathways, whereby adult children with more education may share information about healthy lifestyles, role-model healthier behaviors, and/or have more economic resources to support leisure-based physical activity or the purchase of healthy foods for older parents. However, this relationship has not been comprehensively evaluated with methods capable of addressing the confounding bias expected for observational studies on this topic. We estimated the association between increased adult child schooling and older parents' health behaviors using data from the Survey for Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) (n = 8195). We leveraged changes to compulsory schooling laws that would have impacted respondents' adult children as quasi-experiments and estimated the association between increased schooling among oldest adult children and respondents' (parents') body mass index, obesity, physical inactivity, excessive drinking, and current smoking using two-stage least squares regression. Each year of increased schooling among oldest adult children was associated with a lower risk of current smoking ( β : −0.029, 95% CI: −0.056, −0.003), physical inactivity ( β : −0.034, 95% confidence interval [CI]: −0.077, 0.009), obesity ( β : −0.038, 95% CI: −0.065, −0.011) and lower body mass index ( β : −0.37, 95% CI: −0.73, −0.02). The direction of associations with excessive drinking varied by parent gender ( β : −0.027, 95% CI: −0.046, −0.007 for mothers; β : 0.068, 95% CI: −0.011, 0.148 for fathers). Increases in adult child schooling may have upward influences on parents' late-life health behaviors, although there may be some differences by parent gender. Findings should be replicated across other global settings and studies should directly evaluate parent health behaviors as mediators of the relationship between increased adult child schooling and older parents' longevity. Highlights: Growing research suggests adult child education influences parents' mortality. This association may be due to health behavior pathways, but evidence is scarce. We conducted a quasi-experimental study of this topic using European data. Increased child schooling was associated with improved health behaviors for older parents. Associations with older parents' risk of excessive drinking varied by parent gender.