Parental criminality and children's educational attainment: A population-based extended family study

Objectives We examine how parental criminality is associated with offspring education at different educational stages from primary to tertiary education and conduct separate analyses for non-violent and violent crimes and incarceration, and for paternal and maternal criminality. Methods We use Swedish total population register data of 513,886 children and their parents and estimate both population-level linear probability models and cousin fixed-effects models. Results Parental criminality was negatively associated with all stages of offspring education. In population-level models accounting for parental education, the strongest associations were observed for parental violent crimes and incarceration with offspring secondary education completion (beta: −0.16 to −0.18). Cousin fixed-effects models suggested that family-level unobserved heterogeneity played a role in the associations as they were reduced when analyzing cousins differently exposed to parental criminality. Conclusions Parental criminality is negatively associated with offspring educational attainment, and the associations are in part due to shared familial factors. The association is different at different educational stages and for parental violent vs. non-violent crime.