Previous research has documented intergenerational transmission of human capital from children to parents. Less is known, however, about heterogeneity in this ‘upward transmission’ in low-resource settings. We examine whether co-resident adult children’s education is associated with improved health among older parents in India, using nationally representative data from the 2014 Indian National Sample Survey. Parents of children with tertiary education had a lower probability of reporting poor health than parents of children with less than primary education. The benefits of children’s education persisted after controlling for economic factors, suggesting that non-pecuniary pathways—such as health knowledge or skills—may play an important role. The association was more pronounced among economically dependent parents and those living in the North and West regions. Taken together, our results point to a strong positive association between children’s education and parental health, the role of non-pecuniary pathways, and the importance of subnational heterogeneity in India.

先前的研究记录了人力资本从儿童到父母的代际传递。然而，人们对资源匮乏环境中这种“向上传播”的异质性知之甚少。我们使用 2014 年印度全国抽样调查的全国代表性数据，研究了同住成年子女的教育是否与印度年长父母的健康状况改善有关。受过高等教育的儿童的父母报告健康状况不佳的可能性低于受教育程度低于初等教育的儿童的父母。在控制经济因素后，儿童教育的好处仍然存在，这表明非金钱途径——如健康知识或技能——可能发挥重要作用。这种关联在经济上依赖的父母以及居住在北部和西部地区的父母中更为明显。综上所述，我们的结果表明，儿童教育与父母健康、非金钱途径的作用以及印度次国家异质性的重要性之间存在很强的正相关关系。