The timing and partnership context of becoming a parent

Hobcraft, John

doi:10.4054/demres.2008.19.34

Cited by 17 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 39 publications

(47 reference statements)

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“…Grundy and Read (2015), indeed, use data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing to establish this association and, in developing their results further, highlight the fact that wealth, as an indicator of socioeconomic status, mediates the association to some extent. Without being exhaustive, a similar pattern is established by Pirkle et al (2014) in a cross-national sample containing developed as well as developing countries, while Patel and Sen (2012) reveal this pattern for a representative sample of the United States 1979 youth cohort and Hobcraft (2008) for the 1958 and 1970 British cohorts. 3 A common limitation mentioned in a number of these contributions is that, on the whole, the interpretation of the found effects is hampered by the endogenous selection of disadvantaged girls into teenage motherhood.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 57%

Late-life health effects of teenage motherhood

Angelini¹,

Mierau²

2018

DemRes

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BACKGROUND Teenage motherhood has been associated with a host of adverse outcomes over the life cycle. Less, however, is known about the impact of teenage motherhood on health later in life. OBJECTIVE To study the impact of teenage motherhood on late-life health, using a retrospective survey of almost 12,000 women aged 50+ from 13 European countries containing detailed information on early-life circumstances. METHODS We develop linear models of the association between teenage motherhood and late-life health outcomes. We control for early-life factors parametrically as well as through propensity score matching. In addition, we employ recently developed methods to derive consistent lower-bound estimates for the causal impact of teenage motherhood on late-life health outcomes. RESULTS We find that teenage mothers experience substantially poorer self-reported late-life health and are more likely to display depressive symptoms than nonteenage mothers. This result remains after controlling for early-life as well contemporaneous socioeconomic conditions. CONTRIBUTION We exploit recently developed empirical techniques to derive consistent lower bounds of the causal impact of teenage motherhood on health later in life using a cross-national survey of early-life and contemporaneous socioeconomic conditions.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 57%

Late-life health effects of teenage motherhood

Angelini¹,

Mierau²

2018

DemRes

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“…On the one hand, serious health limitations or disability in early life may restrict opportunities for partnership and parenthood (Kiernan 1989) and lifestyle-related factors such as heavy alcohol consumption and obesity may also influence partnership trajectories and are known to reduce fecundity, as well as being associated with health (Sallmen et al 2006). On the other hand, numerous studies have shown that childhood disadvantages of various kinds, including poorer physical or mental health, are strongly associated with early parenthood (Hobcraft and Kiernan 2001;Henretta et al 2008;Hobcraft 2008;Mollborn and Morningstar 2009), itself associated with higher overall parity. Educational status is associated both with fertility trajectories and with health and mortality, as are marital biographies (Kravdal et al 2012).…”

Section: Methodological Issuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For parents, additional dichotomous variables were derived indicating whether or not respondents had ever experienced the death of a natural child, had had a biological child before the age of 20 (women) or 23 (men), or after age 34 (women) or 39 (men). These cut points were chosen on the basis of the relevant previous literature and the distribution observed in the sample (Hobcraft 2008;Read, Grundy, and Wolf 2011). All measures were derived from wave 1, except the item on experience of death of a child, which was obtained from the wave 3 life-history interview.…”

Section: Fertility and Parenthood History Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pathways from fertility history to later life health: Results from analyses of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing

Grundy¹,

Read²

2015

DemRes

127

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BACKGROUNDPrevious research shows associations between fertility histories and later life health. The childless, those with large families, and those with a young age at entry to parenthood generally have higher mortality and worse health than parents of two or three children. These associations are hypothesised to reflect a range of biosocial influences, but underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. OBJECTIVESTo identify pathways from fertility histories to later life health by examining mediation through health-related behaviours, social support and strain, and wealth. Additionally to examine mediation through allostatic load -an indicator of multisystem physical dysregulation, hypothesised to be an outcome of chronic stress. METHODSAssociations between fertility histories, mediators, and outcomes were analysed using path models. Data were drawn from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Outcomes studied were a measure of allostatic load based on 9 biomarkers and selfreported long-term illness which limited activities. RESULTSEarly parenthood (<20 for women, <23 for men) was positively associated with higher (worse) allostatic load and long-term illness. These associations were partly mediated through wealth, smoking, and physical activity. Wealth, smoking, physical activity, and social strain also mediated associations between larger family size, itself associated with early parenthood, and health outcomes. We found no significant associations between childlessness and allostatic load or long-term illness, except for an association

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“…2 Given that previous studies have indicated a nonlinear relationship between parity and health, we used a categorical variable for number of children with five possible values: childless, one child, two children, three children, and four or more children. Age at first birth was categorized into bands that are slightly different for men and women, based on results from previous studies (Grundy and Read 2015;Hobcraft 2008;…”

Section: Fertility Historymentioning

confidence: 99%

Fertility History and Biomarkers Using Prospective Data: Evidence From the 1958 National Child Development Study

2020

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Research on the later-life health implications of fertility history has predominantly considered associations with mortality or self-reported indicators of health. Most of this previous research has either not been able to account for selection factors related to both early-life and later-life health or has had to rely on retrospectively reported accounts of childhood circumstances. Using the 1958 National Child Development Study, and in particular the biomedical survey conducted in 2002-2003, we investigate associations between fertility histories (number of children and age at first and at last birth) and biomarkers for cardiometabolic risk and respiratory function in midlife among both men and women. Results from models that adjusted for a very wide range of childhood factors, including early-life socioeconomic position, cognitive ability, and mental health, showed weak associations between parity and biomarkers. However, we found an inverse association between age at first birth and biomarkers indicative of worse cardiometabolic

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The timing and partnership context of becoming a parent

Cited by 17 publications

References 39 publications

Late-life health effects of teenage motherhood

Late-life health effects of teenage motherhood

Pathways from fertility history to later life health: Results from analyses of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing

Fertility History and Biomarkers Using Prospective Data: Evidence From the 1958 National Child Development Study

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