Parental Illness and Young People’s Education

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects of parental health problems on the probability of youths leaving upper secondary education before completion in Sweden, and to investigate potential gender differences in these effects. Medical and social microdata from Swedish administrative registers were used. The study population consisted of individuals born between 1987 and 1990 (N = 398,748) who were still alive and residing in Sweden in 2010. We employed a quasi-experimental pre-test post-test study design. Logistic regression was used to analyse the relationships between indicators of parental illness and young people’s early school leaving in relation to health and sociodemographic confounders. Having had a mother or father with psychiatric, but not somatic, illness that necessitated hospitalisation after completing compulsory schooling was significantly associated with an increased probability of leaving upper secondary education. We found no significant gender-specific interaction effects. The existence of these effects in Sweden, a country with an extensive institutional welfare system, suggests that similar but more pronounced effects may exist in regions lacking such systems.