How children's education affects caregiving: Evidence from parent's last years of life

Examining the Impact of Assistive Technology on Psychological Health, Family Education, and Curriculum Research in Japan: Insights from Artificial Intelligence

This study aims to analyze the effect of psychological health based on artificial intelligence agent technology on the implementation effect of Japanese family education. By combining mobile agent technology and education thought, the system structure and working mechanism of the education support system of agents are studied to build personalized support for the family education system based on mobile agents. A total of 320 Japanese middle school students were randomly divided into an experimental group and a control group, with 160 cases in each group. The control group received traditional family health education, while the experimental group received mental health education based on the Agent Technology family education system. The basic information and mental health scores of the two groups of students were compared. The results showed that there were no remarkable differences in the number of male and female cases, weight, height, average age, grade, home address, or family situation between groups (p > 0.05). The psychological health level of the experimental group was considerably superior to that of the control group regarding obsessional symptoms, interpersonal tension and sensitivity, depression, anxiety, learning pressure, maladaptation, emotional imbalance, and psychological imbalance (p < 0.05). In summary, compared with traditional family education, family education of the mental health education system based on agent technology can better improve the level of middle school students' mental health, which can improve student forced symptoms, interpersonal tension and sensitivity, depression, anxiety, learning pressure, maladjustment, emotional imbalance, psychological imbalance, and many other psychological states. Furthermore, personalized support for family education systems based on mobile agents has the advantages of autonomy, responsiveness, initiative, and mobility, which provides a new idea for family education.

20th Century Puerto Rico and Later-Life Health: The Association Between Multigenerational Education and Chronic Conditions in Island-Dwelling Older Adults

OBJECTIVES

Previous research on the association between education and older adult health in the U.S. has not included Puerto Rico. We investigated the effects of multigenerational educational attainment and chronic conditions among older Puerto Ricans residing on the archipelago's main island.

METHODS

Data were from the longitudinal Puerto Rican Elderly Health Conditions Project. Generalized Poisson regression models were used to examine if multigenerational educational attainment was associated with chronic disease.

RESULTS

Findings show that parental educational attainment was associated with fewer chronic conditions among females at baseline but not at follow-up, suggesting that the effects of parental education on health over time are less pronounced. For males, educational attainment across the three generations was not significantly associated with chronic disease at baseline or follow-up.

DISCUSSION

Multigenerational education is an important determinant of older adult health that continues to be relevant in Puerto Rico and the Latin American and Hispanic-Caribbean region.

Adult Child Schooling and Older Parents' Cognitive Outcomes in the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE): A Quasi-Experimental Study

A growing body of research suggests that adult child educational attainment benefits older parents' cognitive outcomes via financial (e.g., direct monetary transfers) and nonfinancial (e.g., psychosocial) mechanisms. Quasi-experimental studies are needed to circumvent confounding bias. No such quasi-experimental studies have been completed in higher-income countries, where financial transfers from adult children to aging parents are rare. Using data on 8,159 adults aged ≥50 years in the Survey for Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (2004/2005), we leveraged changes in compulsory schooling laws as quasi-experiments. Each year of increased schooling among respondents' oldest children was associated with better verbal fluency (β = 0.07, 95% CI: 0.02, 0.12) scores; overall associations with verbal memory scores were null, with mixed and imprecise evidence of association in models stratified by parent gender. We also evaluated associations with psychosocial outcomes as potentially important mechanisms. Increased schooling among respondents' oldest children was associated with higher quality-of-life scores and fewer depressive symptoms. Our findings present modest albeit inconsistent evidence that increases in schooling may have an "upward" influence on older parents' cognitive performance even in settings where financial transfers from adult children to their parents are uncommon. Associations with parents' psychosocial outcomes were more robust.

Increased adult child schooling and older parents' health behaviors in Europe: A quasi-experimental study

There is growing evidence that adult child educational attainment is associated with older parents' physical health and longevity. Scholars have hypothesized that these associations may be driven by health-behavior pathways, whereby adult children with more education may share information about healthy lifestyles, role-model healthier behaviors, and/or have more economic resources to support leisure-based physical activity or the purchase of healthy foods for older parents. However, this relationship has not been comprehensively evaluated with methods capable of addressing the confounding bias expected for observational studies on this topic. We estimated the association between increased adult child schooling and older parents' health behaviors using data from the Survey for Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) (n = 8195). We leveraged changes to compulsory schooling laws that would have impacted respondents' adult children as quasi-experiments and estimated the association between increased schooling among oldest adult children and respondents' (parents') body mass index, obesity, physical inactivity, excessive drinking, and current smoking using two-stage least squares regression. Each year of increased schooling among oldest adult children was associated with a lower risk of current smoking (β: −0.029, 95% CI: −0.056, −0.003), physical inactivity (β: −0.034, 95% confidence interval [CI]: −0.077, 0.009), obesity (β: −0.038, 95% CI: −0.065, −0.011) and lower body mass index (β: −0.37, 95% CI: −0.73, −0.02). The direction of associations with excessive drinking varied by parent gender (β: −0.027, 95% CI: −0.046, −0.007 for mothers; β: 0.068, 95% CI: −0.011, 0.148 for fathers). Increases in adult child schooling may have upward influences on parents' late-life health behaviors, although there may be some differences by parent gender. Findings should be replicated across other global settings and studies should directly evaluate parent health behaviors as mediators of the relationship between increased adult child schooling and older parents’ longevity.

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Growing research suggests adult child education influences parents' mortality.

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This association may be due to health behavior pathways, but evidence is scarce.

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We conducted a quasi-experimental study of this topic using European data.

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Increased child schooling was associated with improved health behaviors for older parents.

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Associations with older parents' risk of excessive drinking varied by parent gender.

Adult Children's Education and Older Parents' Chronic Illnesses in Aging China

Although intergenerational transmission from parents to children has been widely studied, less is known about human capital spillover from children to parents. Utilizing nationally representative data on both doctor diagnosis and biomarkers, as well as exploiting variations in the implementation of China's Compulsory Education Law, we examine the effects of adult children's education on the prevalence of chronic cardiovascular illnesses among older parents in China and explore potential mechanisms. Instrumental variable estimates indicate that additional years of schooling among adult children decrease the prevalence of hypertension among older parents, whereas no evidence indicates a significant impact on the prevalence of diabetes among the same group. Sons and daughters differentially impact their mothers and fathers. Compared with fathers, mothers benefit more from adult children's education. Although no significant differences are observed in the effects of sons' and daughters' education in urban China, sons' education is more beneficial for parents' health in rural China. Further analyses show that financial support and health support (e.g., diagnosis and management of chronic illnesses and maintenance of health behaviors) are critical pathways for older parents to benefit from their adult children's education.

The Effect of Adult Children's Education Attainment on Their Parents' Cognitive Health: An Intergenerational Support Perspective

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between adult children's education attainment and their parents' cognitive health, and to further explore the mechanism of intergenerational support. Based on empirical analysis of data from China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Survey, our study finds a positive association between children's educational attainment and parents' cognitive health. This correlation is provided for by emotional communication of informal caregiving, financial support, and healthy behaviors shaped in the parents by adult children. The strength of the effect varied by the adult child's gender. While sons' education attainment significantly improves parental cognitive parameters through informal caregiving, financial support, and development of healthy behaviors, the effect of daughters' education derives from financial support and healthy behaviors, not being related to informal caregiving. The study enriches the evidence on the mobility of children's human capital toward their parents and provides practical insights for advancing children's participation in family caregiving.

Black-White Differences in the Link Between Offspring College Attainment and Parents' Depressive Symptom Trajectories

This study examines whether the relationship between children's college attainment and their parents' mental health differs for Black and White parents as they age. Data come from the U.S. Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and multilevel growth curve models are used to assess parents' depressive symptom trajectories. Results indicated that parents over age 50 whose children all completed college had significantly lower initial levels of depressive symptoms than those with no college-educated children. The initial benefit was stronger for Blacks than Whites. Results stratified further by parents' education show that Black parents at nearly all levels of schooling experienced stronger returns to their mental health from children's college completion compared to White parents, for whom only those with a high school education showed an inverse association between offspring education and depression symptoms. The findings underscore how offspring education is a potential resource for reducing disparities in health across families.

Adult child socio-economic status disadvantage and cognitive decline among older parents in Mexico

There is growing interest in the contribution of offspring educational attainment to parents' health outcomes. However, less is known about the impacts of offspring socio-economic status (SES) on parents' cognitive decline or about the role of offspring SES disadvantage. We used data from the Mexican Health and Aging Study (n = 10,426) to evaluate the impact of adult child SES disadvantage on parents' verbal memory trajectories over fourteen years (2001-2015). We estimated linear mixed models and used measures of adult child SES (educational, financial, and employment) disadvantage. Our most robust finding was that having an adult child with less than secondary education was associated with faster decline in verbal memory z-scores for older women (β: -0.009 [95% CI: -0.01, -0.001]) and men (β: -0.01 [95% CI: -0.02, -0.01]). Although poor adult child financial well-being was associated with a faster decline in parents' verbal memory z-scores, this finding was less consistent across model specifications. Additional analyses also suggested some evidence of heterogeneity by parents' own educational attainment and gender. These findings highlight the potential importance of children's socio-economic status for the cognitive aging of their older parents.

Offspring migration and nutritional status of left-behind older adults in rural China

Improvements in nutritional status is a principal pathway to good health. This study examines the effect of migration of adult children on the nutrient intake of left-behind older adults in rural China. We use data from four waves (2004-2011) of the China Health and Nutrition Survey and utilize individual fixed effects methods to panel data. Results show that the migration of offspring is associated with significantly higher nutritional status of their left-behind parents, especially higher intake of proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins B1-B3, phosphorus, magnesium, iron, selenium, and copper. The intake of some of these nutrients is below recommended levels. The magnitude of the estimated effects vary between 4% and 24 %. Older adults who live with their grandchildren in rural households or have a low income benefit more from having adult child migrants in the household. The improvement of nutrition outcomes of left-behind older adults is mainly due to increased consumption of cereals, meat, eggs, and fish.

Offspring Educational Attainment and Older Parents' Cognition in Mexico

Population-level disparities in later-life cognitive health point to the importance of family resources. Although the bulk of prior work establishes the directional flow of resources from parents to offspring, the "linked lives" perspective raises the question of how offspring resources could affect parental health as well. This paper examines whether adult children's education influences older parents' (aged 50+) cognitive health in Mexico, where schooling reforms have contributed to significant gains in the educational achievements of recent birth cohorts. Harnessing a change in compulsory school laws and applying an instrumental variables approach, we found that each year of offspring schooling was associated with higher overall cognition among parents, but was less predictive across different cognitive functioning domains. More offspring schooling improved parents' cognitive abilities in verbal learning, verbal fluency, and orientation, but not in visual scanning, visuo-spatial ability, or visual memory. The beneficial effects of offspring schooling on those cognitive domains are more salient for mothers compared to fathers, suggesting potential gendered effects in the influence of offspring schooling. The results remained robust to controls for parent-child contact and geographic proximity, suggesting other avenues through which offspring education could affect parental health and a pathway for future research. Our findings contribute to growing research which stresses the causal influence of familial educational attainment on population health.

How Families Matter for Health Inequality during the COVID-19 Pandemic

We theorize that social conditions surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic have the potential to increase the importance of families for health and widen existing inequalities. We suggest three primary tenets important for understanding families and health during COVID-19. First, risks of specific COVID-19 outcomes and other health problems are unevenly distributed across families. Second, how families impact health during the COVID-19 pandemic is conditional on public policies, organizational decisions, and concurrent events. Third, many health inequalities driven by racism, sexism, classism, and other oppressive societal force are amplified during COVID-19, but the extent to which this is occurring is shaped by families and by the public policies, organizational decisions, and concurrent events that also impact families and health. As health disparities continue to emerge from this pandemic, we call on researchers and policy-makers to pay attention to the multiple ways that families matter.

Children's education and parental old-age health: Evidence from a population-based, nationally representative study in India

Previous research has documented intergenerational transmission of human capital from children to parents. Less is known, however, about heterogeneity in this 'upward transmission' in low-resource settings. We examine whether co-resident adult children's education is associated with improved health among older parents in India, using nationally representative data from the 2014 Indian National Sample Survey. Parents of children with tertiary education had a lower probability of reporting poor health than parents of children with less than primary education. The benefits of children's education persisted after controlling for economic factors, suggesting that non-pecuniary pathways-such as health knowledge or skills-may play an important role. The association was more pronounced among economically dependent parents and those living in the North and West regions. Taken together, our results point to a strong positive association between children's education and parental health, the role of non-pecuniary pathways, and the importance of subnational heterogeneity in India.