At a time when educational attainment in young adulthood forecasts long-term trajectories of economic mobility, better health, and stable partnership, there is more pressure on mothers to provide labor and support to advance their children’s interests in the K–12 system. As a result, poor health among mothers when children are growing up may interfere with how far they progress educationally. Applying life course theory to the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health to investigate this possibility, we found that young adults were less likely to graduate from college when raised by mothers in poor health, especially when those mothers had a college degree themselves. Young people’s school-related behaviors mediated this longitudinal association. These findings extend the literature on the connection between education and health into an intergenerational process, speaking to a pressing public health issue—rising morbidity among adults in midlife—and the reproduction of inequality within families.

中文翻译：

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生病时的母亲：孕产妇健康状况不佳与年轻人的教育程度

当青年人的教育程度预示着经济流动性、更好的健康和稳定的伙伴关系的长期轨迹时，母亲面临更大的压力，需要提供劳动力和支持，以促进孩子在 K-12 系统中的兴趣。因此，孩子成长过程中母亲的健康状况不佳可能会影响他们的教育进步。我们将生命历程理论应用于国家青少年至成人健康纵向研究来调查这种可能性，发现由健康状况不佳的母亲抚养长大的年轻人大学毕业的可能性较小，尤其是当这些母亲本身拥有大学学位时。年轻人的学校相关行为介导了这种纵向关联。这些发现将有关教育与健康之间联系的文献扩展到代际过程，涉及紧迫的公共卫生问题——中年成年人发病率上升——以及家庭内部不平等的再现。