Low household income and educational attainment are associat

Low household income and educational attainment are associated with material deprivation and reduced opportunities for children that tranylcypromine in turn predict the onset and severity of childhood mental health problems (Evans, 2004; McLaughlin et al., 2011; Reiss, 2013). However beyond material disadvantage, lower educational attainment within the home environment has been identified as a social disadvantage that can limit opportunities for children’s own educational attainment, career prospects, and hopes for upward social mobility (Elffers, 2012; Reiss, 2013; Sheikh, Abelsen, & Olsen, 2016). Furthermore, low educational attainment of parents has been shown to be independently associated with reduced utilization of child mental health resources, and relatedly, increased severity and duration of child mental health problems (McLaughlin et al., 2011; Reiss, 2013). As such, identifying and understanding how early social inequalities affect the development of children’s positive mental health is an important research question. And while past research has often examined education as a parent-level variable (Goldfeld, Kvalsvig, Incledon, O’Connor, & Mensah, 2014; Park, Fuhrer, & Quesnel-Vallée, 2013), other research suggests that educational attainment is often similar within families, with social and economic resources shared at a household level (Schwartz, 2013). Drawing from a national population-based data source, we sought to examine how household educational attainment was related to adolescent positive mental health, recognizing that in the majority of cases the highest education level would belong to a parent/caregiver or another adult in the household. Past studies have identified linear associations between household educational attainment and negative mental health outcomes for young children. For example, two studies which measured parents’ highest level of completed schooling found that household educational attainment and income were independently associated with young children’s social, emotional, conduct, and hyperactivity problems (Davis, Sawyer, Lo, Priest, & Wake, 2010; Sonego, Llácer, Galán, & Simón, 2013). Similarly, research by Park et al. (2013) identified the educational attainment of mothers, in particular, to be a strong predictor of depression among adolescent offspring (aged 12 to 24) even after adjusting for household income, single parent status, maternal age, adverse life events, and parents’ depression. Related research on psychological resources suggests that adolescents living within lower education households perceive higher stress and that cis configuration is at least partially explained by lower dispositional optimism (Finkelstein, Kubzansky, Capitman, & Goodman, 2007). Other research investigating the association of childhood socioeconomic status (parents’ education and financial conditions) on adult mental health has found that a lack of instrumental support (i.e., someone able to help in times of need) explained most of the variation in offspring mental health outcomes, more than emotional support or offspring health behaviours (Sheikh et al., 2016). In comparison, associations between household educational attainment and offspring positive mental health remain relatively under-researched (McLaughlin et al., 2011; Sonego et al., 2013). One recent Australian study found that children at school-entry were rated to have higher positive mental health if their mother had completed high school (Goldfeld et al., 2014). However, we know of no studies that have empirically assessed the association between household educational attainment and positive mental health outcomes amongst adolescent offspring. Furthermore, existing studies on child and adolescent mental health outcomes have generally relied on teacher and parent reports of mental health, rather than measuring experiences of mental health directly from adolescents themselves (e.g., Davis et al., 2010; Goldfeld et al., 2014; Sonego et al., 2013).