Vaezghasemi Masoud, Mosquera Paola A, Gustafsson Per E, Nilsson Karina, Strandh Mattias
Department of Epidemiology and Global Health, Umeå University, Sweden.
Department of Social Work, Faculty of Social Sciences, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden.
SSM Popul Health. 2020 Mar 27;11:100566. doi: 10.1016/j.ssmph.2020.100566. eCollection 2020 Aug.
While previous research has evidently and extensively acknowledged socioeconomic gradients in children's education, we know very little about the determinants of socioeconomic-related inequality in children's education at the population level in Sweden. Therefore, we aimed: (i) to assess the extent of income inequality in upper secondary school completion in Sweden; (ii) to examine the contribution of mental health and other determinants to income inequality; and (iii) to explore gender differences in the magnitude and determinants of the inequalities.
We utilised data from a population-based cohort available in Umeå SIMSAM Lab, linked with several national registries in Sweden. The dataset includes all children who were born in Sweden in 1991 and completed or not completed their upper secondary education in 2010, n = 116,812 (56,612 girls and 60,200 boys). We analysed the data using a Wagstaff-type decomposition method.
The results first show substantial income-related inequality in upper secondary school incompletion concentrated among the poor in the Swedish setting. Second, these inequalities were in turn to a large degree explained jointly by parental, family and child factors; primarily parents' income and education, number of siblings and child's poor mental health. Third, these inferences remained when boys and girls were considered separately, although the determinants explained a greater share of the inequalities in boys than in girls.
Our results highlighted substantial income-related inequality in upper secondary school incompletion concentrated among the poor in the Swedish setting. Apart from family level characteristics, which explained a large portion of the inequalities, mental health problems appeared to be of particular importance as they represent a central target for both increasing the population average in upper secondary school completion and for reducing the gap in income-related inequalities in Sweden.
尽管先前的研究已经明确且广泛地认识到儿童教育中的社会经济梯度，但我们对瑞典人口层面儿童教育中与社会经济相关的不平等的决定因素知之甚少。因此，我们旨在：（i）评估瑞典高中教育完成情况中的收入不平等程度；（ii）研究心理健康和其他决定因素对收入不平等的贡献；（iii）探讨不平等程度和决定因素在性别上的差异。
我们利用了于默奥SIMSAM实验室提供的基于人群队列的数据，并与瑞典的几个国家登记处相链接。该数据集包括1991年在瑞典出生且于2010年完成或未完成高中教育的所有儿童，n = 116,812（56,612名女孩和60,200名男孩）。我们使用瓦格斯塔夫型分解方法分析了数据。
结果首先表明，在瑞典环境中，高中未完成情况存在与收入相关的显著不平等，且集中在贫困人口中。其次，这些不平等在很大程度上又由父母、家庭和儿童因素共同解释；主要是父母的收入和教育程度、兄弟姐妹数量以及儿童的心理健康状况不佳。第三，尽管这些决定因素对男孩不平等的解释比例高于女孩，但分别考虑男孩和女孩时，这些推断仍然成立。
我们的结果突出了在瑞典环境中，高中未完成情况存在与收入相关的显著不平等，且集中在贫困人口中。除了解释大部分不平等的家庭层面特征外，心理健康问题似乎尤为重要，因为它们既是提高瑞典高中教育完成率总体水平的核心目标，也是缩小与收入相关不平等差距的核心目标。
