{"id":14267,"date":"2014-07-29T13:29:05","date_gmt":"2014-07-29T18:29:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/%year%\/%monthnum%\/%day%\/paa-journal-parents-of-better-educated-kids-live-longer\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T03:22:16","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T08:22:16","slug":"paa-journal-parents-of-better-educated-kids-live-longer","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2014\/07\/29\/paa-journal-parents-of-better-educated-kids-live-longer\/","title":{"rendered":"PAA journal: Parents of better-educated kids live longer"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Credit:<\/a>
Credit: istockphoto<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>\n\n

Still another reason to send your children to college: You\u2019ll live longer.<\/p>\n\n

At least that\u2019s what sociologists Esther M. Friedman and Robert D. Mare found when they examined the association between how far a child goes in school and how long their parents live.<\/p>\n\n

Writing in the latest issue of the journal Demography<\/a>, published by The Population Association of America (PAA), Friedman and Mare found that parents of college graduates lived about two years longer on average than those whose children didn\u2019t graduate from high school. <\/p>\n\n

In fact, moms and dads seem to benefit from every additional level of their child\u2019s education. In other words, parents of a college graduate lived slightly longer on average than those whose child had attended college but did not graduate. And both of those sets of parents lived longer than the parents of a child with only a high school degree or less education.<\/p>\n\n

Friedman and Mare base their conclusions on an analysis of data collected for the University of Michigan\u2019s Health and Retirement Study<\/a> (HRS), a longitudinal panel study that every two years surveys an approximately representative sample of more than 26,000 adults over the age of 51. In addition to collecting personal data about each individual, the study included questions about the participants\u2019 children, grandchildren and children-in-law.<\/p>\n\n

[survivor\u2019s]<\/p>\n\n\n

Friedman and Mare then tested the apparent relationship between longevity and children\u2019s education by controlling for both parents\u2019 schooling and family income. They found that parents with children who had at least a college degree died, on average, at age 71 while those whose children did not finish high school died at age 69, after accounting for parents\u2019 education and income.<\/p>\n\n

They also discovered that when it comes to living longer, your child\u2019s gender matters. Having a girl adds to parents\u2019 lifespans, more so than having a boy. And moms seem to benefit more than dads from having a daughter in the family.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cThese analyses show that having daughters is indeed more beneficial for mothers\u2019 survival than for fathers\u2019\u201d they wrote. \u201cHowever, we found no significant differences in the effects of sons\u2019 and daughters\u2019 schooling\u201d so the researchers did not explore this relationship further in this study.<\/p>\n\n

So why do the parents of better-educated kids live longer? The researchers hypothesize one reason could be that better-educated children may influence their parents to adopt healthier lifestyles that, in turn, would add years to the parents\u2019 lives.<\/p>\n\n

In fact, Friedman and Mare found that the parents of better-educated children were less likely to smoke and more likely to say they quit smoking than the parents of less-educated offspring. Similarly, parents with better-educated kids exercised more than other parents.<\/p>\n\n

But the researchers allow that parents may be trying to keep up with their healthy kids, \u201cIt is also possible that parents of highly educated offspring might have a stronger motivation to take care of themselves and stay healthy than those with less-successful offspring,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n\n

Esther M. Friedman is an associate behavioral and social scientist at the Rand Corporation in Santa Monica, California. Robert D. Mare is distinguished professor of sociology at the University of California\u2014Los Angeles.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Still another reason to send your children to college: You\u2019ll live 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