ArticleSocial science & medicine (1982)2017
Offspring schooling associated with increased parental survival in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
Article in Social science & medicine (1982), 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 55 citations in OpenAlex.
- Mechanistic pathways between adult child education and late-life parental health outcomes: cross-national comparisons across the US, Mexico, and India.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2026Article
- The intergenerational transmission from adult Children's education to parents' health in China: Nonlinearity and mechanisms.SSM - population health · 2025Article
- Spillover effect of children's education on parental physical functioning over the life course.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Consequences of deferred action for childhood arrivals for parent health: Applying a social foreground perspective.Journal of marriage and the family · 2024Article
- Adult child educational attainment and older parents' psychosocial outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic.BMC public health · 2024Article
- On the Efficacy of Indigenous Knowledge Systems in Responding to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Unsettling Coloniality.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2024Article
- Does Adult Children's Education Increase Parents' Longevity in China?International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Adult Child Schooling and Older Parents' Cognitive Outcomes in the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE): A Quasi-Experimental Study.American journal of epidemiology · 2022Article
- Increased adult child schooling and older parents' health behaviors in Europe: A quasi-experimental study.SSM - population health · 2022Article
- Offspring Education and Parents' Health Inequality in China: Evidence from Spillovers of Education Reform.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Black-White Differences in the Link Between Offspring College Attainment and Parents' Depressive Symptom Trajectories.Research on aging · 2022Article
- The Effect of Adult Children's Education Attainment on Their Parents' Cognitive Health: An Intergenerational Support Perspective.Frontiers in public health · 2022Article
- Rural migration, governance, and public health nexus: Implications for economic development.Frontiers in public health · 2022Article
- Article
- Causal effect of children's secondary education on parental health outcomes: findings from a natural experiment in Botswana.BMJ open · 2021Article
- Older mother's health and adult children's education: Conceptualization of adult children's education and mother-child relationships.SSM - population health · 2019Article
- Offspring education and parental mortality: Evidence from South Asia.Social science research · 2018Article
- Antiretroviral therapy coverage associated with increased co-residence between older and working-age adults in Africa.AIDS (London, England) · 2018Article
- Adult children's education and changes to parents' physical health in Mexico.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2017Article
- Parental Support by Highly Educated Offspring: Disparities Across Urban-Rural Contexts and Parental Health Dimensions.Inquiry : a journal of medical care organization, provision and financingArticle
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundInvesting in offspring's human capital has been suggested as an effective strategy for parents to improve their living conditions at older ages. A few studies have assessed the role of children's schooling in parental survival in high-income countries, but none have considered lower-resource settings with limited public wealth transfers and high adult mortality.
methodsWe followed 17,789 parents between January 2003 and August 2015 in a large population-based open cohort in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. We used Cox proportional hazards models to investigate the association between offspring's schooling and time to parental death. We assessed the association separately by parental sex and for four cause of death groups.
resultsA one year increase in offspring's schooling attainment was associated with a 5% decline in the hazard of maternal death (adjusted Hazard Ratio [aHR]: 0.95, 95%CI: 0.94-0.97) and a 6% decline in the hazard of paternal death (aHR: 0.94, 95%CI: 0.92-0.96), adjusting for a wide range of demographic and socio-economic variables of the parent and their children. Among mothers, the association was strongest for communicable, maternal, perinatal and nutritional conditions (aHR: 0.87, 95%CI: 0.82-0.92) and AIDS and tuberculosis (aHR: 0.92, 95%CI: 0.89-0.96), and weakest for injuries. Among fathers, the association was strongest for injuries (aHR: 0.87, 95%CI: 0.79-0.95) and AIDS and tuberculosis (aHR: 0.92, 95%CI: 0.89-0.96), and weakest for non-communicable diseases.
conclusionHigher levels of schooling in offspring are associated with increased parental survival in rural South Africa, particularly for mothers at risk of communicable disease mortality and fathers at risk of injury mortality. Offspring's human capital may be an important factor for health disparities, particularly in lower-resource settings.
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