What benefits are associated with having more highly educated parents? How do these benefits vary from country to country? Promoting equal opportunity for individuals in the face of a wide array of life situations has a strong moral, economic, and societal grounding. Understanding the lasting effects of parental education on adults offers critical insights into the state of intergenerational social mobility today. Children with more highly educated parents are less likely to grow up in poverty, and young adults with more highly educated parents are more likely to be enrolled in postsecondary education. Data from Cycle I of the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, conducted between 2012 and 2017, allow researchers to investigate relationships between parental education and their children's social and economic outcomes into late adulthood. In this cycle, PIAAC collected data from 39 participating countries on parental education, often categorized into three levels: neither parent completed high school, at least one parent completed high school, and at least one parent completed college or higher. These data provide an indicator of adult socioeconomic origins that has helped researchers study the impact of parental education on numerous outcome measures for their adult children, including educational attainment; literacy, numeracy, and problem-solving skills development; income; and employment. An additional family background indicator assessed by PIAAC is the number of books in the household when the respondent was 16. This brief highlights the main findings from 24 reports and research papers, including both national and international sources that draw on PIAAC data. The brief begins with an international perspective, then delves into the effects of parental education in the United States. The discussion concludes by examining the implications of these findings and identifying areas requiring further research.