Educational inequalities in health behaviors change dynamically across the life course. Yet, how parental and personal education interactively shape age-specific behavioral inequalities across the transition to adulthood has yet to be understood. Drawing on national Add Health data (N = 12,605; 6,675 women and 5,930 men), we analyze age- and gender-specific trajectories of current smoking and binge drinking from adolescence to young adulthood. In line with previous work, we find that parental education associates with smoking and drinking disparities even after respondents’ own education is completed. Reciprocally, we also find that disparities by eventual educational attainment appear early. During the college years, higher parental education predicts higher—not lower—rates of binge drinking. We find that attaining higher education “against the odds” of an educationally disadvantaged family background circumscribes the lowest rates of smoking and drinking for men and women alike, and especially during the college years, while “falling from grace” by not attaining higher education at levels matching one’s parents predicts the highest levels of smoking and drinking for both genders during or after college. These results shed new light on the interactive socioeconomic processes that help to explain behavioral health gradients across adolescence and adulthood.

健康行为方面的教育不平等在整个生命过程中动态变化。然而，父母和个人教育如何在过渡到成年的过程中相互作用地塑造特定年龄的行为不平等尚待了解。借鉴全国新增健康数据（N = 12,605；6,675 名女性和 5,930 名男性），我们分析了当前从青春期到青年期吸烟和酗酒的年龄和性别特定轨迹。与之前的工作一致，我们发现即使在受访者自己的教育完成后，父母的教育也与吸烟和饮酒的差异有关。反过来，我们也发现最终教育程度的差异出现得很早。在大学期间，较高的父母教育预示着更高——而不是更低——的酗酒率。我们发现，在教育上处于不利地位的家庭背景下“克服困难”获得高等教育限制了最低男性和女性的吸烟和饮酒率都一样，尤其是在大学期间，而由于没有获得与父母相匹配的高等教育水平而“失宠”，预示着大学期间或大学毕业后两性的吸烟和饮酒水平最高。这些结果为有助于解释青春期和成年期行为健康梯度的互动社会经济过程提供了新的视角。