HEALTH AFTER AGE 50: THE ROLE OF ADULT CHILDREN’S EDUCATION FOR OLDER PARENTS’ FRAILTY IN EUROPE

In ageing societies, intergenerational transmission of (dis-)advantages is a two-way process, since parental investment in children may be reciprocated later in life. While extensive research has explored the impact of family background on children’s life chances, little is known about the importance of children’s socioeconomic resources on older parents’ health and health inequality – what has been called the effect of “social foreground” on later-life health. We use data on parents aged 50 or over living in 29 European countries from the 2004-2020 Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) to examine whether adult offspring’s educational attainments are associated with parents’ Frailty Index (FI). Frailty is conceptualized as a state of vulnerability that reflects an accumulation of deficits in various health domains. Preliminary results from random intercept linear regression models, based on a total of 89,752 parents and 210,999 parent-child dyads, indicate that children’s higher education is associated with a lower FI, particularly among mothers. We find a positive moderating effect of the educational levels of parents and children, suggesting that a child’s higher education tends to compensate for the frailty disadvantage of lower-educated parents (especially mothers). These findings suggest that children’s upper intergenerational mobility in the educational ladder reduces health inequalities in later life. Furthermore, the study highlights the societal implications of investing in younger generations, as these investments yield benefits not only for the individuals but also for the health and well-being of older generations.