The interaction of personal and parental education on health

The association between education and good health is well established, but whether the strength of the association depends on other social statuses is not. We test a theory of resource substitution which predicts a larger correlation between education and health (measured for physical impairment) for people who grew up in families with poorly-educated parents than for those whose parents were well educated. This is supported in the Aging, Status, and Sense of control (ASOC) survey, a representative national U.S. sample with data collected in 1995, 1998, and 2001. The reason that parental education matters more to people who are poorly educated themselves is due to an unhealthy lifestyle, specifically to smoking and being overweight. Finally, as the poorly educated age, the negative health effects of their parents’ low educational attainment get worse.

Research highlights
► Personal education benefits health mostly for people whose parents are poorly educated.
► Personal educational attainment counteracts the negative health effects of having poorly-educated parents.
► Low levels of parents’ education worsen health mostly among people who are poorly educated themselves.
► These processes increase health disparities based on educational attainment in two generations.