The impact of birthweight and adolescent health on educational attainment

ABSTRACT

This article examines the relationship between birthweight, adolescent health (general health and psychological distress) and high school completion in Norway, using survey data linked to longitudinal registry data (n = 5,354). The findings show that the positive association between birthweight and high school completion can be attributed to socioeconomic status. General adolescent health is explained by socioeconomic status combined with risk- and protective behavior. Psychological distress is mediated by having a close relationship with family and friends among the most affluent students, but not among the lower-income students. Among the lower-income students it was, instead, absence from school and feeling comfortable in class that mediated the association between psychological distress and high school completion, net of other factors.

KEYWORDS:

• adolescent health
• educational attainment
• upper-secondary education
• social inequality

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 First-generation immigrants are excluded from the analyses due to missing information on birthweight.

2 The marginal effects for categorical variables show how p (Y = 1) is predicted to change as the categorical independent variable changes from 0 to 1 holding all other independent variables equal. For continuous independent variables, the marginal effect measures the instantaneous rate of change (Williams, 2011), we used the margins’ command in Stata 13.

3 The percentage of students in the academic track (studieforberedende) is higher in Oslo than in the rest of the country.

4 Gestational weeks were insignificant and were therefore excluded from the analyses.

Additional information

Funding

This research has been funded by the Research Council of Norway, through the project Educational Trajectories: Choices, Constraints and Contexts [grant number 212340/H20].