The interaction of family background and personal education on depressive symptoms in later life

This study assesses the interaction between personal education and family background during childhood on depressive symptoms in later life by applying Ross & Mirowsky's resource substitution and structural amplification theory of health and education. OLS regression models are estimated using data from the “Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe” (SHARE), which covers information on current social and health status as well as retrospective life histories from 20,716 respondents aged 50 or older from thirteen European countries. Higher education helps to overcome the negative consequences of a poor family background. Since people from poor families are less likely to attain higher educational levels, they lack exactly the resource they need in order to overcome the negative consequences their non-prosperous background has on depressive symptoms. Thus, low family background and low personal education amplify each other. Examining the processes described by theory of resource substitution and structural amplification over different age groups from midlife to old-age suggests that the moderating effect of education remains constant over age among people coming from a poor family background. However, there is some evidence for a decrease with age in the buffering effect of a well-off family background on depressive symptoms among the low educated group. Furthermore, the educational gap in depression diverges with age among individuals originating from a well-off family background. Taken together the results cautiously allude to the conclusion that three processes - cumulative (dis-)advantage, age-as-leveler, and persistent inequalities - might take place.