Education disrupts the intergenerational transmission of health disadvantage across three generations in China

This article utilizes survey data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) to examine whether grandparents’ health disadvantage have both direct and indirect effects on the health disadvantage of their grandchildren, and whether the completion of compulsory education by parents disrupts these intergenerational transmissions in China. The findings suggest that grandparents’ health disadvantage significantly increases the probability of grandchildren’s health disadvantage with and without controlling parental health disadvantage and other characteristics. Moreover, the study identifies a disruptive influence of parental education on this transmission process. Rigorous robustness tests, including the use of the Compulsory Education Law as an instrumental variable to control for unobserved factors, validate these results. Mechanism analysis shows that parents completing compulsory education contribute to improving their nutritional balance and adopting healthy behaviors, attaining higher social status, earning higher income, which ultimately reduce the probability of health disadvantage for both themselves and their children. These findings highlight the persistent intergenerational transmission of health disparities within families and emphasize the importance of enhancing individuals’ education levels to disrupt this transmission. By doing so, it may be possible to mitigate health inequalities and disparities across the population.