Children's education and level of health care utilization among parents: a pooled cross-sectional study from national population-based survey in India

The study of upward spill over on parents of their offspring's education is vital for understanding the family dynamics and role of adult children in the decisions of parents. Such association has widespread implication and application on ageing policies. We use pooled data from population-based cross-sectional health consumption surveys conducted by the National Sample Survey Organization in 2014 and 2018 (rounds 71 and 75, respectively) in this study. The analysis is restricted to individuals aged 60 and above, who are head of the household or their spouse and have children aged 25 years or above. The analysis is carried out for inpatient and outpatient cases separately. For inpatient analysis, the dependent variable is designed as a rank variable representing an increasing level of health care utilization. For the same partial proportional odds are calculated. For outpatient cases, the dependent variable is binary that takes the value 0 if the parents use public facilities and 1 if private facilities are used. Here, binary logistic regression is used for analysis. The odds of parents using a higher level of inpatient as well as outpatient health care are higher for those with better-educated children (inpatient: OR are 2.6 (p < 0.001, CI: 2.0-3.5); outpatient: OR are 1.5 (p < 0.001, CI: 1.1-2.2)). Education of children does influence the level of health care utilization among parents. Therefore, policy interventions can target offspring of working age group, who can assimilate information better and transfer it to their parents.