Adult Children’s Education and Parents’ Functional Limitations in Mexico

• In Event: 178 - Section on the Sociology of the Family Paper Session. Families, Health, and Well-Being

Abstract

This paper asks how adult children’s education influence older parents’ physical health in Mexico, a context where older adults often lack access to institutional resources and rely on kin, primarily children, as a main source of support. Using data from the first wave of the Mexican Health and Aging Study (N=9,661) we find that parents whose children all completed some college education are less likely to report any functional limitations as well as fewer limitations compared to parents with no children who attended college. This association remains significant even after accounting for parent and offspring-level characteristics, including children’s financial transfers to parents. Future research should aim to understand the mechanisms that explain the association between adult children’s education and parental health.

Authors

• Jenjira Yahirun, University of Hawaii-Manoa

• Connor Sheehan, University of Texas-Austin

• Mark D. Hayward, University of Texas-Austin