Socioeconomic Inequality and Life Satisfaction in Late Childhood and Adolescence: A Moderated Mediation Model

An increasing number of studies have established an association between socioeconomic inequality and life satisfaction, but the underlying mediating and moderating mechanisms of this association have not been fully identified. The present study investigated the effect of family socioeconomic status (SES) on life satisfaction in late childhood and adolescence; examined the mediating effect of optimism in the association between family SES and life satisfaction; and tested whether this mediating process varied across late childhood and adolescence. A sample of 552 Chinese children in late childhood (M _age = 10.73 years, SD = 0.96) and 637 Chinese adolescents (M _age = 14.71 years, SD = 1.60) was recruited to complete questionnaires regarding family SES, optimism, and life satisfaction. Results indicated that socioeconomic inequality was associated with life satisfaction in Chinese children and adolescents. Moreover, optimism partially mediated the relation between family SES and life satisfaction, and developmental period moderated this mediation effect. Specifically, the mediation effect was found in adolescence, but not in late childhood, indicating an adolescent-emergent model (Chen et al. in Psychol Bull 128(2):295–329, 2002; in Soc Sci Med 62(9):2161–2170, 2006). The meaning and implications of socioeconomic inequality in different development periods and applied considerations to improve life satisfaction in late childhood and adolescence are discussed.     

Duration and Timing of Exposure to Neighborhood Poverty and the Risk of Adolescent Parenthood

Theory suggests that the impact of neighborhood poverty depends on both the duration and timing of exposure. Previous research, however, has not properly analyzed the sequence of neighborhoods to which children are exposed throughout the early life course. This study investigates the effects of different longitudinal patterns of exposure to disadvantaged neighborhoods on the risk of adolescent parenthood. It follows a cohort of children in the PSID from age 4 to 19 and uses novel methods for time-varying exposures that overcome critical limitations of conventional regression when selection processes are dynamic. Results indicate that sustained exposure to poor neighborhoods substantially increases the risk of becoming a teen parent and that exposure to neighborhood poverty during adolescence may be more consequential than exposure earlier during childhood.     

Intergenerational reliance on social assistance: Evidence from Canada

This paper provides the first analysis of the intergenerational transmission of participation in a Canadian social assistance program. Two sources of intergenerational transmission are taken into account: one that is due to a possible causal link between parents' and children's participation, and one that is due to a correlation between individual and environment specific characteristics across generations. The basic data come from the Québec government's administrative records and cover 17,203 young people who were 18 years old in 1990 and whose parents were recipients of social assistance during at least one month between 1979 and 1990. The results reveal that, on average, a one-percentage unit increase in parental participation during the youth's pre-adult years (age 7–17) raises the youth's participation rate by 0.29 percentage unit during early adulthood (age 18–21). This impact is stronger during the early stages of childhood (age 7–9) and during late adolescence (age 16–17).     

Revised regional model life tables at very low levels of mortality

This paper presents and discusses new model life tables at very low mortality, which make use of age-specific death rates from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. These life tables fit recorded death rates in very low mortality populations better than do the existing ones at expectations of life of 77.5 and 80 years. The old tables incorporate too-high mortality at the higher ages and in infancy and they incorporate regional differences that no longer exist. The new tables "close out" the mortality schedules above age 80 more realistically. The convergence of age patterns of mortality at very high life expectancies in populations that used to conform to different families is in itself of demographic interest. Some convergence may perhaps be expected. Sullivan (1973) found that, in Taiwan, the comparison of mortality at ages 1-5 to mortality at 5-35 in the late 1950s showed higher mortality at the younger ages relative to the ensuing 30-year age interval than was found in any of the models, including the South model, which has the highest relative mortality from ages 1-5 among the 4 regional patterns. Then, in the late 1960s, the relation of mortality at 1-5 to mortality at 5-35 in Taiwan fell to a position intermediate between the West and South tables. Sullivan found in data on mortality by cause of death a large reduction in mortality from diarrhea and enteritis, no doubt as a result of environmental sanitation. Mortality from these causes is concentrated among young children, and reduction in deaths from these causes would naturally diminish the excess mortality in this age interval. The East pattern, characterized by very high mortality in infancy (but not from 1-5), may be the result of the prevalence of early weaning or avoidance of breast feeding altogether in the populations characterized by this pattern. As health conditions have improved, evidenced by the overall design of mortality, these special factors are diminished or erased. Model life tables at these very low mortality levels have different uses from most applications of model life tables at higher mortality. The use of model tables to estimate accurate schedules of mortality when the basic data are incomplete or inaccurate is less relevant in this range of mortality levels.     

Growing Parental Economic Power in Parent–Adult Child Households: Coresidence and Financial Dependency in the United States, 1960–2010

Research on coresidence between parents and their adult children in the United States has challenged the myth that elders are the primary beneficiaries, instead showing that intergenerationally extended households generally benefit the younger generation more than their parents. Nevertheless, the economic fortunes of those at the older and younger ends of the adult life course have shifted in the second half of the twentieth century, with increasing financial well-being among older adults and greater financial strain among younger adults. This article uses U.S. census and American Community Survey (ACS) data to examine the extent to which changes in generational financial well-being over the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have been reflected in the likelihood of coresidence and financial dependency in parent–adult child U.S. households between 1960 and 2010. We find that younger adults have become more financially dependent on their parents and that while older adults have become more financially independent of their adult children, they nevertheless coreside with their needy adult children. We also find that the effect of economic considerations in decisions about coresidence became increasingly salient for younger adults, but decreasingly so for older adults.     

A Four-Country Study on the Relationship Between Parental Educational Homogamy and Children’s Health from Infancy to Adolescence

This study explores the relationship between parental educational similarity—educational concordance (homogamy) or discordance (heterogamy)—and children’s health outcomes. Its contribution is threefold. First and foremost, I use longitudinal data on children’s health outcomes tracking children from age 1 to 15, thus being able to assess whether the relationship changes at key life-course and developmental stages of children. This is an important addition to the relevant literature, where the focus is solely on outcomes at birth. Second, I look at different health outcomes, namely height-for-age (HFA) and BMI-for-age (BFA) z-scores, alongside their dichotomized counterparts, stunting and thinness. Third, I conduct the same set of analyses in Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam, thus providing multi-context evidence from countries at different levels of development and with different socio-economic characteristics and gender dynamics. Results reveal important heterogeneity across contexts. In Ethiopia and India, parental educational homogamy is associated with worse health outcomes in infancy and childhood, while associations are positive in Peru and, foremost, Vietnam. Complementary estimates from matching techniques show that these associations tend to fade after age 1, except in Vietnam, where the positive relationship persists through adolescence, thus supporting the homogamy-benefit hypothesis not only at birth, but also across the early life course. Insights from this study contribute to the inequality debate on the intergenerational transmission of advantage and disadvantage and shed additional light on the relationship between early-life conditions and later-life outcomes in critical periods of children’s lives.

     

Do early life and contemporaneous macroconditions explain health at older ages?

This paper presents an approach that assesses the role of early life and contemporaneous macroconditions in explaining health at older ages. In particular, we investigate the role of exposure to diseases and economic conditions during infancy and childhood, as well as the effect of current health care facilities. Specific attention is paid to the impact of unobserved heterogeneity, selective attrition, and omitted relevant macrovariables. We apply our approach to self-reports on functional limitations of Dutch older individuals. The prevalence of functional limitations is found to increase in the 1990s, in part due to restricted access to hospital care.     

The Importance of Early Childhood Poverty

Most poor children achieve less, exhibit more problem behaviors and are less healthy than children reared in more affluent families. We look beyond correlations such as these to a recent set of studies that attempt to assess the causal impact of childhood poverty on adult well-being. We pay particular attention to the potentially harmful effects of poverty early in childhood on adult labor market success (as measured by earnings), but also show results for other outcomes, including out-of-wedlock childbearing, criminal arrests and health status. Evidence suggests that early poverty has substantial detrimental effects on adult earnings and work hours, but on neither general adult health nor such behavioral outcomes as out-of-wedlock childbearing and arrests. We discuss implications for indicators tracking child well-being as well as policies designed to promote the well-being of children.     

Origins and Destinations,but How Much and When? Educational Disparities in Smoking and Drinking Across Adolescence and Young Adulthood

Educational inequalities in health behaviors change dynamically across the life course. Yet, how parental and personal education interactively shape age-specific behavioral inequalities across the transition to adulthood has yet to be understood. Drawing on national Add Health data (N?=?12,605; 6,675 women and 5,930 men), we analyze age- and gender-specific trajectories of current smoking and binge drinking from adolescence to young adulthood. In line with previous work, we find that parental education associates with smoking and drinking disparities even after respondents’ own education is completed. Reciprocally, we also find that disparities by eventual educational attainment appear early. During the college years, higher parental education predicts higher—not lower—rates of binge drinking. We find that attaining higher education “against the odds” of an educationally disadvantaged family background circumscribes the lowest rates of smoking and drinking for men and women alike, and especially during the college years, while “falling from grace” by not attaining higher education at levels matching one’s parents predicts the highest levels of smoking and drinking for both genders during or after college. These results shed new light on the interactive socioeconomic processes that help to explain behavioral health gradients across adolescence and adulthood.

     

On the Survival of Centenarians and the Span of Life

It has been argued in the literature that the observed mortality crossover among older black Americans relative to the white population is a result of ‘differential early mortality which selects the least robust persons from the disadvantaged population at relatively earlier ages so that, at advanced ages, the disadvantaged population has proportionately more robust persons’ (Kenneth G. Manton). The authors examine the plausibility of the observed black mortality crossover and the heterogeneity argument supporting its existence. In addition to citing evidence from the literature, they use life tables from various countries known to have good mortality data to explore the relation between mortality in childhood and at younger adult ages and mortality in old age for cohorts and periods. Analysis suggests that the association between childhood and old-age mortality for cohorts is positive, implying that observed mortality crossovers are produced by deficient data rather than population heterogeneity.     

Extending the Lee-Carter Method to Model the Rotation of Age Patterns of Mortality Decline for Long-Term Projections

In developed countries, mortality decline is decelerating at younger ages and accelerating at old ages, a phenomenon we call “rotation.” We expect that this rotation will also occur in developing countries as they attain high life expectancies. But the rotation is subtle and has proved difficult to handle in mortality models that include all age groups. Without taking it into account, however, long-term mortality projections will produce questionable results. We simplify the problem by focusing on the relative magnitude of death rates at two ages (0 and 15–19) while making assumptions about changes in rates of decline at other ages. We extend the Lee-Carter method to incorporate this subtle rotation in projection. We suggest that the extended Lee-Carter method could provide plausible projections of the age pattern of mortality for populations, including those that currently have very high life expectancies. Detailed examples are given using data from Japan and the United States.     

Life Course Changes in Smoking by Gender and Education: A Cohort Comparison Across France and the United States

Widening of educational disparities and a narrowing female advantage in mortality stem in good part from disparities in smoking. The changes in smoking and mortality disparities across cohorts and countries have been explained by an epidemic model of cigarette use but are also related to life course changes. To better describe and understand changing disparities over the life course, we compare age patterns of smoking in three cohorts and two nations (France and the US) using smoking history measures from the 2010 French health barometer (N = 20,940) and the 2010 US National Health Interview Survey Sample Adult File (N = 20,444). The results demonstrate statistically significant widening of gender and educational differences from adolescence to early and middle adulthood, thus accentuating the disparities already emerging during adolescence. In addition, the widening disparities over the life course have been changing across cohorts: age differences in educational disparities have grown in recent cohorts (especially in France), while age differences in gender disparities have narrowed. The findings highlight the multiple sources of inequality in smoking and health in high-income nations.     

Early life exposures and the occurrence and timing of heart disease among the older adult Puerto Rican population

Few studies have examined the effects of early life conditions on the timing of the onset of heart disease. We use the remarkable example of a representative sample of the population of older Puerto Ricans aged 60– 74 who lived in the countryside during childhood (n = 1,438) to examine the effects of seasonal exposures to poor nutrition and infectious diseases during late gestation on the timing of the onset and the probability of ever experiencing adult heart disease. Cox and log logistic hazard models controlling for childhood conditions (self-reported childhood health status and socioeconomic status [SES], rheumatic fever, and knee height) and adult risk factors (adult SES, obesity, smoking, texercise, and self-reported diabetes) showed that the risk of onset of heart disease was 65% higher among those born during high-exposure periods compared with unexposed individuals. However, there were no significant differences in median time of onset for those ever experiencing heart disease. As a comparison, we found that there were no significant seasonality effects for those who lived in urban areas during childhood. We conclude that early exposures in utero have important ramifications for adult heart disease among the older Puerto Rican population. We show, however, that while exposure is associated with the probability of ever experiencing adult heart disease, it is not associated with the timing of onset among those who do experience it.     

Economic Conditions in Early Life and Circulatory Disease Mortality

I test the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease hypothesis using a cohort perspective on mortality. I combine data from the National Health Interview Survey Linked Mortality Files, 1986–2006, and U.S. economic data between 1902 and 1956 (403,746 respondents and 39,439 deaths), to estimate how exposures to adverse economic conditions in utero and during the first three years of life affect circulatory disease mortality risk in adulthood. I also examine cohort‐based variation in these associations. Findings suggest that in utero exposures to poor economic conditions increased risk of death from circulatory diseases. Results are consistent with theory and evidence suggesting that developmental processes early in life are strongly associated with circulatory disease susceptibility in older adulthood. However, findings indicate that the mortality effects of these early‐life exposures have likely weakened across birth cohorts.     

The long-term effect of childhood poverty

This paper uses variation among siblings to identify the consequences of childhood poverty on both labour and marriage market outcomes. In the labour market, individuals who experienced childhood poverty are found to have lower earnings and lower labour market attachment and to have worse jobs both vertically in terms of low-paying industries and horizontally in terms of job positions. In the marriage market, childhood poverty is found to have negative consequences for the probability of marriage, cohabitation, and having children around the age of 30. The effect sizes are found to exhibit an inverse u-shape in the age of the child, peaking during adolescence. Results on educational choices suggest that the mechanisms behind these results can be that childhood poverty affects the skill formation, networks, and decision making of the child.     

Only children as adult women: Life course events and timing

A comparison between adult women who are only children and women who grew up with siblings is performed in relation to life course characteristics (events and timing), using a random sample of Canadian women (birth cohorts 1905–29 and 1930–44) surveyed, by telephone, in Vancouver and Victoria (total n of 1 251, with a response rate of approximately 60 percent). Initial analysis shows that female adult only children are less likely to have large families, more likely to marry and have their first child at older ages, more likely to attain high levels of education, and, among the younger cohort, more likely to cohabitate at younger ages. However, more refined analysis reveals that differences are, for the most part, the result of family of origin variables associated with sibsize rather than the result of only child status per se. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for research within the life course perspective, and in the light of possible changes accompanying population aging.     

Timing of the transition to nonvirginity among unmarried adolescent women

This article focuses on differences between teenagers who became sexually active in early adolescence (15 or younger) and those who did so in late adolescence (16–19). It reviews research on adolescent sexual behavior and summarizes findings on factors associated with adolescent coitus. The few findings on the meaning of first coitus are also noted. A study which used a sample of already-pregnant adolescents is presented in detail. While few differences between those who first had coitus during early adolescence and those who had it later were significant, most were in the predicted direction, and none were contrary to the hypotheses. A major significant difference concerned the relationship between sex and love; those who found the two related tended to start their sexual careers later than those who did not. Policy implications of research findings are discussed, especially those relevant to sex education.This research was supported in part by Grant No. HD 11099 NICHD, and in part by Grant No. 78-499, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation.This article is a revision of a paper presented at the Annual Meetings of the Society for the Study of Social Problems, August 26, 1980, New York, N.Y.     

The Unequal Consequences of Mass Incarceration for Children

A growing literature has documented the mostly deleterious intergenerational consequences of paternal incarceration, but less research has considered heterogeneity in these relationships. In this article, I use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 3,065) to estimate the heterogeneous relationship between paternal incarceration and children’s problem behaviors (internalizing behaviors, externalizing behaviors, and early juvenile delinquency) and cognitive skills (reading comprehension, math comprehension, and verbal ability) in middle childhood. Taking into account children’s risk of experiencing paternal incarceration, measured by the social contexts in which children are embedded (e.g., father’s residential status, poverty, neighborhood disadvantage) reveals that the consequences—across all outcomes except early juvenile delinquency—are more deleterious for children with relatively low risks of exposure to paternal incarceration than for children with relatively high risks of exposure to paternal incarceration. These findings suggest that the intergenerational consequences of paternal incarceration are more complicated than documented in previous research and, more generally, suggest that research on family inequality consider both differential selection into treatments and differential responses to treatments.     

Intergenerational patterns of teenage fertility

One of the frequently cited consequences of teen childbearing is the repetition of early births across generations, which thereby perpetuates a cycle of poverty and disadvantage. We use data from the 1988 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), Cycle IV, to examine trends and determinants of the intergenerational teen fertility link for women who reached adolescence between the 1950s and the 1980s. We find that daughters of both white and black teen mothers face significantly higher risks of teen childbearing than daughters of older mothers. We also find, more generally, that patterns of teenage family formation (i.e., both marriage and childbearing behaviors) tend to be repeated intergenerationally. The results suggest that the intrafamily propensity for early childbearing is not inherited biologically, at least not through factors related to the timing of puberty. Rather, the intergenerational patterns appear to operate at least in part through the socioeconomic and family context in which children grow up.