Family formation patterns and physical health in Australia: a life course approach

Abstract

Social science has long studied the relationships between processes of family formation and health, although empirical patterns in this domain of study are often variable, and their interpretation uncertain. Constrained by lack of suitable data, analytic techniques, and conceptual tools, work in this area has until recently been largely static, focussed on documenting and interpreting crosssectional associations between occupancy of family roles and health. However, as data and methodology matured and developed economies continued their transition away from the once dominant 'male breadwinner' model of the family, more sophisticated approaches that acknowledge the dynamic relationships between family formation and health have become both more feasible and more urgent.This thesis applies a life course approach to the study of family formation and health in the (2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014), and form the primary material for four empirical chapters. The first empirical chapter utilizes multichannel sequence analysis and growth models to investigate how holistic patterns of family formation (incorporating both partnership and fertility trajectories from ages 18-50) are associated with trajectories of physical health at ages 51 and older. For men, family life course trajectories characterized by early family formation, failure to marry, or early divorce without subsequent remarriage are found to be predictive of poorer health outcomes, while for women only those who experienced high fertility paired with a disrupted marital history were found to be in poorer health than those who experienced a normatively 'standard' family life course.The second, third, and fourth empirical chapters focus on different aspects of the relationship between parental age at first birth and later life heath. The first of these contextualizes changes in first birth timing in historical context, presents a descriptive analysis of the characteristics of younger/older first time mothers and fathers, and uses multinomial logistic regression to assess the contribution of early-life family and socio-economic disadvantage, health, and cognitive and noncognitive skills to first birth timing. Consistent with prior research, background family disadvantage and age at school leaving was found to have strong effects on birth timing, in particular for women.ii There was also some evidence of health selection into early first birth, with the largest effects again found for women.The third empirical chapter considers the effect of first birth timing on long-term health outcomes (ages 41 and older). In addition to the primary issue of whether there is an effect of birth timing on health, the analysis pays particular attention to several research questions: first, which pre- as mechanisms, as changes at the time of the parenthood transition and in the years thereafter did not differ depending on age at first birth. Younger parents do experience potentially harmful changes in alcohol use and soc...