(Un)healthy lifestylesEducation as a dividing line

Educational level of parents, smoking and alcohol consumption

Figure 5.1 reveals no relevant differences in smoking based on parental educational level; smoking appears to be explained more by the educational level of the respondent themselves than that of their parents; see also Health-related behaviour in the Netherlands.

Figure 5.2 shows regular alcohol consumption in the Netherlands is closely linked to the educational level of the family in which the respondent grew up. Similar to the differences in alcohol consumption by own educational level, we find that people with university-educated parents, in particular, consume alcohol regularly: 59.2% versus less than 40% of respondents with parents with a lower educational level; see also Health-related behaviour in the Netherlands.

Daily alcohol consumption is also associated with parental educational level. Among respondents with university-educated parents, 14.2% drinks every day, compared with around half those whose parents are educated to intermediate and higher professional level. It is also interesting to note that those with the lowest-educated parents and the highest-educated parents show the greatest correspondence in alcohol consumption, so that the preferences of the two extremes in the educational distribution resemble each other quite closely. It is however likely that, given that this is an expression of lifestyle, the type of alcohol (beer, wine, spirits) will differ considerably.

Social mobility and health-related behaviour

Although people generally tend to resemble their parents, including as regards their education, it is interesting to examine whether people who have risen or fallen on the social ladder exhibit different habits from their parents. It seems likely that people whose social position has remained stable (who have attained the same educational level as their parents) will behave in a way that conforms to their group, while upwardly and downwardly mobile persons will show a mix of the lifestyle preferences of two educational groups (namely those of their parental milieu and that associated with their own present educational level).

Table 5.1 first shows how many people have risen or fallen relative to their parents in terms of educational level. People on the diagonal are stable (44.5%): they have attained the same educational level as their parents. 48.8% have risen up the scale, while 6.7% have fallen compared with their parents (in the Netherlands, 2014). This picture corresponds with the expansion in education which has taken place in the Netherlands since the 1960s, which has seen a growing proportion of the Dutch population participate in (higher) education.

Table 5.2 presents the same data in the form of a transition matrix. The rows in this matrix add up to 100% and, as in table 5.1, we see that most children are upwardly mobile in comparison with their parents.

Alcohol consumption
We then look at whether someone’s educational mobility is related to their alcohol consumption. Figure 5.3 shows that downwardly mobile respondents with university-educated parents are most often regular drinkers (64.0%); among other downwardly mobile respondents the figure is only around 35%. Drinking alcohol regularly is apparently more accepted among people with a university background, and downwardly mobile children from this group adhere more to the lifestyle in which they were brought up, regardless of the educational level they themselves attain; see also Health-related behaviour in the Netherlands.

The differences among respondents with an educational level which is the same as that of their parents are not very pronounced. Stable higher professional (hbo) graduates, in particular, are relatively moderate in their alcohol consumption.

Upwardly socially mobile respondents tend to drink regularly more often than socially stable respondents; in particular, university graduates who have risen up the social ladder (with hbo-educated parents) drink relatively often on a regular basis (50.8%).

A European comparison (see figure 5.4) reveals clear country differences in the frequency of drinking alcohol regularly among downwardly socially mobile, socially stable and upwardly socially mobile respondents. It shows that in Lithuania and Portugal downwardly socially mobile people with an intermediate education are more likely to drink regularly, while in Germany and the United Kingdom this is more frequent among the upwardly socially mobile people with an intermediate education, for example.

Social and physical mobility

We see from figure 5.5 that those with a university education most often engage in intensive physical activity, regardless of whether they are upwardly socially mobile or stable. Relatively speaking, downwardly mobile respondents with university-educated parents also engage in physical activity just as often as university graduates. Among socially stable respondents, we see that those with a low educational level and from a low-educated background least often engage in physical activity (70.6%). Here, the parents’ educational level is more important than the respondent’s own educational level. One possible explanation may be that lack of physical activity is passed on from parent to child.