Timing of puberty and reserve capacity in adolescence as pathways to educational level in adulthood—a longitudinal study

Abstract

Background: Family socioeconomic status (SES) is related to a child’s educational success. Intermediate pathways for this relationship, such as through pubertal timing and reserve capacity, occur in adolescence.

Aim: To study whether family SES affects a child’s adult education through a psychosocial and behavioural pathway (reserve capacity) and/or a biological pathway (pubertal timing) or only through school achievement in adolescence.

Subjects and methods: Finnish adolescents sampled in five cross-sectional surveys from 1985 to 1995 (n = 37,876) were followed through the Registry of Completed Education and Degrees until 2009, when they were 29–43 years old. Family SES data also came from this registry. Structural equation modelling adjusted for ages at baseline and follow-up was used.

Results: Low family SES increased the probability of low adult education, delayed pubertal timing (in boys), weak reserve capacity and low school achievement. Reserve capacity and school achievement directly affected adult education and mediated the relationship of family SES with the outcome. Delayed pubertal timing predicted low adult education, except when school achievement was added to the model.

Conclusions: The results show that family SES affects the child’s adult education level through psychosocial and biobehavioural pathways, but the biological pathway is mediated by school achievement.

Keywords:

• Socioeconomic status
• puberty
• education
• reserve capacity
• school achievement

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Statistics Finland for access to their data and Lasse Pere for assistance in data management.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflict of interest.

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are not available for replication outside members of the research group due to contract specifications with Statistics Finland. The computing code or syntax for analyses are not useful without the data, but these may be shared upon request. However, we welcome other researchers to join our team in Tampere for further analyses of the data.

Additional information

Funding

The Ministry of Social Affairs and Health financed the survey data collections every second year to monitor adolescent health and health behaviours. This work was supported by the Competitive State Research Financing of the Expert Responsibility Area of Tampere University Hospital [9M090 and 9P041 to A.H.R.], the Juho Vainio Foundation [201810178 to P.J.C.] and Academy of Finland [288774].