Parental Education and Self-Rated Health among Older Adults: Evidence from the U.S. and South Korea

The purpose of this cross-national study is to investigate the association between parental education, an important early-life socioeconomic indicator, and self-rated health (SRH) among older adults in Western (U.S.) and Eastern (Korea) countries. The study sample is drawn from nationally representative data collected by the 2016 Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and the 2016 Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging (KLoSA). The final sample consists of 9,610 HRS and 4,425 KLoSA respondents age 65 or older. Hierarchical logistic regression models are used to examine the association between paternal and maternal education and SRH. The results show that low maternal education is significantly associated with fair/poor SRH in the U.S., while low paternal education is associated with fair/poor SRH among older Korean adults, controlling for other covariates. The disparity found in parental education may be due to the cultural differences in patriarchal values and the rate of change in gender expectations and economic development.