Parent’s Higher Education Meant Fewer Mental Problems on Children?

A study shows that there is a relationship between parent’s educational attainment and likelihood of their children to have mental health issues when they become adults. This new finding sheds a new light on how socioeconomic status influences development of depression. The study is made by researchers from McGill University in Montreal, Canada and Florida State University, United States.

 

Low educational status correlated to lower incomes

Mental health problems are more prevalent among cultures with wide income inequality. Those at risk of mental disorders include racial and ethnic minorities, partly because they have lower incomes and less access to health services meant to prevent development of full-blown mental and physical conditions. But those with lower income bracket are at risk because they have fewer resources for health care and less likely to have primary health care services. However, there is no study that explores association between parent’s education and risk of depression to offspring.

The study involves analyzing 29 years of data acquired from National Longitudinal Study of Youth in 1979.  It focused on searching links between parent’s education level, household income and symptoms of depression.

 

Results show that children born to parents with higher educational levels had fewer mental issues such as depression, as they become adults. Researchers explained that such children often had good education, like their parents, and therefore end up in higher-paying jobs. As higher income means more resources to become healthy in mind and body, they have fewer problems with mental health.

But researchers also made recommendations on how to break the vicious cycle of poverty and mental illness by providing educational opportunities for all, regardless of economic and social background, can be a way to prevent poverty and mental illness.

 

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