Paternal Education and Infant Health: Variation by Race/Ethnicity
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Paternal Education and Infant Health: Variation by Race/Ethnicity David E. Rangel 1
&
Emily Rauscher 2
Received: 23 July 2020 / Revised: 12 October 2020 / Accepted: 14 October 2020 # W. Montague Cobb-NMA Health Institute 2020
Abstract In the USA, efforts to improve unequal infant health outcomes require knowledge about how the relationship between education and infant health varies by parental gender and race/ethnicity. Drawing from a pooled random sample of over 1 million live births from the 2011 to 2017 National Vital Statistics System data, we examine the relationship between maternal and paternal education and infant health and assess how it varies by maternal racial and ethnic background. The model fit statistics suggest that the relationship between paternal education and infant health is about equal to maternal education and infant health. However, we find a weaker relationship overall between parental education and infant health among Asian and Hispanic fathers than Whites, American Indian, and Black fathers. Black fathers’ education is more strongly associated with infant health than that of Black mothers. At some levels, paternal education is also more strongly related to health among Hispanic infants. The results suggest a greater focus on fathers’ contributions to infant health is warranted, and programs or policies that focus on fathers could help address racial and ethnic infant health disparities. Keywords Paternal education . Infant health . Race and ethnicity . Maternal education
Introduction Infant health inequalities by race, ethnicity, and education have long persisted in the USA. Explanations of these infant health disparities have focused on maternal educational attainment and maternal race and ethnicity due to persistent disparities across these demographic markers [1]. For example, studies have observed that more educated mothers engage in fewer risky pregnancy behaviors such as smoking or alcohol consumption, are more likely to give birth to normal birth weight babies, and have a reduced risk of infant mortality [2–4]. Prior work has also shown that education’s health benefits vary by race and ethnicity [1]. Black infant mortality rates are Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-020-00902-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * David E. Rangel [email protected] Emily Rauscher [email protected] 1
Department of Education, Brown University, Box 1938, Providence, RI 02912, USA
2
Department of Sociology, Brown University, Box 1916, Providence, RI 02912, USA
two times higher than white infant rates among births to collegeeducated mothers. In contrast, infants born to Hispanic mothers with less schooling tend to have more favorable outcomes despite their lower educational attainment levels [5, 6]. Fathers are omitted from much of this valuable work on mothers, education, and infant health disparities [2, 7–12]. This omission, coupled with efforts to improve the equality of infa
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