Maternal depressive symptoms and young people's higher education participation and choice of university: Evidence from a longitudinal cohort study

Participation in higher education has significant and long-lasting consequences for people's socioeconomic trajectories. Maternal depression is linked to poorer educational achievement for children in school, but its impact on university attendance is unclear. In an English longitudinal cohort study (N = 8952), we explore whether young people whose mothers experienced elevated depressive symptoms are less likely to attend university, and the role of potential mediators in the young person: educational achievement in school, depressive symptoms, and locus of control. We also examine whether maternal depressive symptoms influence young people's choice of university, and non-attendees' reasons for not participating in higher education. Young people whose mothers experienced more recurrent depressive symptoms were less likely to attend university (OR = 0.88, CI = 0.82,0.94, p