Early parental death has been linked to problems in health and educational path. We added to the literature by examining disability pension and various educational outcomes after external (accident, violence, suicide) or natural parental death during childhood or adolescence, taking into account possible heterogeneous associations by parental resources. Using Finnish register data and linear random-effects models, we analysed outcomes of 90,620 and 88,859 children (paternal and maternal death samples, respectively) born between 1982 and 1990. Results indicated lower educational performance and attainment, and a higher probability of disability pension in the bereaved offspring, especially after external parental death. Half of these connections were explained after adjusting for childhood family characteristics. Having a highly educated surviving parent might protect from negative educational and health outcomes. The findings were partly similar for father's and mother's deaths. We demonstrated that the negative associations between parental death and child wellbeing differ by cause of death and parental resources. Cause of death and overall family circumstances should both be considered when analysing child outcomes after parental loss.

Despite interest in unequal maternal and child health, previous research has not focused on educational differences in anxiety and depressive symptoms during pregnancy, although they threaten maternal and child wellbeing. Using the prospective FinnBrain Cohort Study data on 2763 pregnant women over the three pregnancy trimesters and Finnish register data, we estimated multilevel regressions to describe educational differences in prenatal anxiety and depressive symptoms and to analyze whether they can be explained by socioeconomic background, parental mental disorders and adverse experiences during childhood. Prenatal anxiety was measured by the Symptom Checklist (SCL-90-anxiety subscale) and depressive symptoms by the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS). The results showed less anxiety and depressive symptoms among more educated pregnant women. In accounting for the educational differences, we found support for both the social selection and the social causation perspectives. Adverse childhood experiences partly explained the educational differences, highlighting the role of an undisturbed childhood environment in prenatal mental health disparities. Results from the regression models as well as sensitivity analyses also suggested that education is likely to buffer against prenatal distress.

Family leave uptake by fathers represents one pathway to redress the typically unequal division of early childcare, which has been linked to various family outcomes, including the mother’s employment and children’s schooling. The generous Nordic leave systems are designed around this concept to encourage leave uptake, though the choice to take leave remains an individual one. There is a substantial body of literature on policy and individual-level drivers of leave uptake, but less so for meso-level factors, such as workplace and extended family, despite a possible key role in influencing individual family leave decisions. We used population register data from Finland to examine the demographics of fathers’ family leave uptake in 2007–2016. We found that uptake was highest amongst the employed, and that female-dominated industries and workplaces were associated with fathers taking longer periods of leave, particularly in the later years of the study. We also found possible indicators of role model effects, with long leaves of close family and of colleagues associated with longer leaves for new fathers. Our results suggest that meso-level contexts may be an important mediator in decisions surrounding uptake and length of fathers’ family leaves.