TY - JOUR
T1 - Family deaths in the early life course and their association with later educational attainment in a longitudinal cohort study
AU - Thyden, Naomi Harada
AU - Slaughter-Acey, Jaime
AU - Widome, Rachel
AU - Warren, John Robert
AU - Osypuk, Theresa L.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2023/9
Y1 - 2023/9
N2 - Due to structural racism and pathways between racism and health, Black and Native American people die at younger ages than white people. This means that those groups are likely to experience deaths of family members at younger ages. Evidence is mixed about whether family deaths affect educational attainment. We aim to 1) estimate the prevalence of family deaths by age and race 2) estimate the effect of a family death on later educational attainment and 3) analyze whether the effect of a family death varies by age, socioeconomic status, gender, and race. The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) is a nationally representative sample of U.S. adolescents in grades 7–12 at baseline in 1994–1995. Add Health has a large and racially diverse sample and records family deaths across the entire life course starting from birth. Participants were included in this analysis if they reported their educational attainment in Wave IV (N = 14,796). The racial group with the lowest proportion experiencing a sibling or parent death in the first 23 years of their lives was white participants (11.7%), followed by Asian (12.5%), Hispanic (15.0%), Black (24.3%) and Native American participants (30.3%). In adjusted models, those who experienced a family death had 0.60 times the odds (95% CI 0.51–0.71) of achieving a bachelor's degree compared to those without a family death. Mother deaths, father deaths, and sibling deaths were each harmful for obtaining a college degree and their effects were similar in magnitude. The age range when the effect of a family death was strongest was 10–13 years old (OR = 0.52 95% CI 0.40–0.67). The effect of a family death on college degree attainment did not vary by baseline parent education, participant sex, or race/ethnicity.
AB - Due to structural racism and pathways between racism and health, Black and Native American people die at younger ages than white people. This means that those groups are likely to experience deaths of family members at younger ages. Evidence is mixed about whether family deaths affect educational attainment. We aim to 1) estimate the prevalence of family deaths by age and race 2) estimate the effect of a family death on later educational attainment and 3) analyze whether the effect of a family death varies by age, socioeconomic status, gender, and race. The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) is a nationally representative sample of U.S. adolescents in grades 7–12 at baseline in 1994–1995. Add Health has a large and racially diverse sample and records family deaths across the entire life course starting from birth. Participants were included in this analysis if they reported their educational attainment in Wave IV (N = 14,796). The racial group with the lowest proportion experiencing a sibling or parent death in the first 23 years of their lives was white participants (11.7%), followed by Asian (12.5%), Hispanic (15.0%), Black (24.3%) and Native American participants (30.3%). In adjusted models, those who experienced a family death had 0.60 times the odds (95% CI 0.51–0.71) of achieving a bachelor's degree compared to those without a family death. Mother deaths, father deaths, and sibling deaths were each harmful for obtaining a college degree and their effects were similar in magnitude. The age range when the effect of a family death was strongest was 10–13 years old (OR = 0.52 95% CI 0.40–0.67). The effect of a family death on college degree attainment did not vary by baseline parent education, participant sex, or race/ethnicity.
KW - Bereavement
KW - Family death
KW - Health disparities
KW - Life course
KW - Mortality
KW - Population health
KW - Social determinants of health
KW - Structural racism
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U2 - 10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.116161
DO - 10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.116161
M3 - Article
C2 - 37595424
AN - SCOPUS:85168005011
SN - 0277-9536
VL - 333
JO - Social Science and Medicine
JF - Social Science and Medicine
M1 - 116161
ER -