Yahirun Jenjira J, Sheehan Connor M, Mossakowski Krysia N
Center on the Family, University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, Honolulu, Hawaii.
School of Social and Family Dynamics, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona.
J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci. 2020 Jan 14;75(2):389-402. doi: 10.1093/geronb/gby135.
Research on the socioeconomic gradient in mental health links disadvantaged family background with subsequent symptoms of depression, demonstrating the "downstream" effect of parental resources on children's mental health. This study takes a different approach by evaluating the "upstream" influence of adult children's educational attainment on parents' depressive symptoms.
Using longitudinal data from the U.S. Health and Retirement Study (N = 106,517 person-years), we examine whether children's college attainment influences their parents' mental health in later life and whether this association increases with parental age. We also assess whether the link between children's college completion and parents' depression differs by parents' own education.
Parents with children who completed college have significantly lower levels of depressive symptoms than parents without college-educated children, although the gap between parents narrows with age. In addition, at baseline, parents with less than a high school education were more positively affected by their children's college completion than parents who themselves had a college education, a finding which lends support to theories of resource substitution.
Offspring education is an overlooked resource that can contribute to mental health disparities among older adults in a country with unequal access to college educations.
心理健康方面的社会经济梯度研究将不利的家庭背景与随后的抑郁症状联系起来，显示了父母资源对儿童心理健康的“下游”影响。本研究采用了不同的方法，评估成年子女的教育程度对父母抑郁症状的“上游”影响。
利用美国健康与退休研究的纵向数据（N = 106,517人年），我们研究子女是否大学毕业会影响其父母晚年的心理健康，以及这种关联是否会随着父母年龄的增长而增强。我们还评估了子女大学毕业与父母抑郁之间的联系是否因父母自身的教育程度而有所不同。
子女完成大学学业的父母的抑郁症状水平显著低于子女未受过大学教育的父母，尽管随着年龄增长，父母之间的差距会缩小。此外，在基线时，受教育程度低于高中的父母比自身受过大学教育的父母在子女大学毕业后受到的积极影响更大，这一发现支持了资源替代理论。
在一个大学教育机会不平等的国家，子女教育是一种被忽视的资源，它可能导致老年人心理健康方面的差异。
