How Children's Education Affects Caregiving: Evidence from Parent’s Last Years of Life

Using data from the Health and Retirement Study (1994–2012), we studied the association between adult children’s education and financial and caregiving support they provided to their aging parents in the last years of the parents’ life. We controlled for the circumstances of parents’ death, their functional limitations, whether they were in long-term care or home-care settings in the last year of their life, and in some models, various measures of parents’ self-reported health. Estimates suggest that having a college degree and above has a significantly positive association with monetary transfers and knowledge support children provide to their parents. Estimates remained robust in models that included parent fixed effects. Evidence of children’s education on instrumental support to parents was nonlinear in that although some college education increased instrumental support, but, a college degree did not have a statistically significant effect. Gender did not play a moderating role in the relationship between offspring education and support towards parents.