Educational Attainment: A Protective Factor in Late-Life Depression

While education is known to be a protective factor in mental health, there have been few attempts to capture this advantage cross-nationally. This paper presents a cross-national analysis depicting the cumulative influence of early-life education as a protective factor for mental health in late-life. This study employed a cross-national European sample of 22,771 individuals ages 50 and above (Mean age=66.6; SD= 10.22). Analyses confirmed that lower educational attainment, defined as lower than or equal to a high school degree, was a significant risk factor for depression in aging adults, independent of sociodemographic variables. Rates of depression among participating adults ranged from 18.10% in Denmark to 36.84% in Spain. Odds of depression among individuals with low educational attainment were on average twice as high among adults with low education compared to those of stronger educational background (p-value= 0.00). These independent odds were lowered from 2.01 to 1.34 when covariates for confounding were introduced via multivariate logistic regression. Other independent risks included female gender (2.04) and functional disability (1.23). Despite the heightened attention paid to the increasing burden of mental health morbidity in later-life, the role of improved early life education as a protective factor merits further consideration.