Parental socioeconomic status and preschool children’s school accompaniment patterns: Exploring the role of parents in commuting behavior

Objective

The purposes of this study were: 1) to describe the preschool children's accompaniment patterns to school and 2) to analyze the association of the accompaniment person with the parental socioeconomic status.

Methods

A total of 2356 parents and their preschool children (4.56 ± 0.87 years old, 46.9% girls) from Spain participated in this study. Parents self-reported their marital status, educational and professional level, and their children’s mode of commuting to school behavior. Binary logistic regressions models were fitted to analyze the associations between the accompaniment with the parental educational and professional level.

Results

The preschool children were mainly accompanied by the mother (68%) and the father’s accompaniment rate was higher when the parents reported higher educational and professional levels (p < 0.05). When the parental educational and professional levels were lower (OR = 1.59 and OR = 1.85, respectively, p < 0.05) or the father’s educational and professional levels were higher (OR = 1.81 and OR = 1.61, respectively, p < 0.05) preschool children were more likely to be actively accompanied by the mother.

Conclusions

Thus, the preschool children were escorted by the mother and actively by the parents when the educational and professional levels were lower. These results highlight the importance of intervening through the father's involvement in high socioeconomic neighborhoods to increase active commuting to school.