The Effects of Childhood,Adult, and Community Socioeconomic Conditions on Health and Mortality among Older Adults in China

Using a large, nationally representative longitudinal sample of Chinese aged 65 and older, this study examines the effects of childhood, adult, and community socioeconomic conditions on mortality and several major health outcomes. The role of social mobility is also tested. We find that childhood socioeconomic conditions exert long-term effects on functional limitations, cognitive impairment, self-rated health, and mortality independent of adult and community socioeconomic conditions. Achieved conditions matter for most outcomes as well, considering that adult and community socioeconomic conditions have additional impacts on health among Chinese elders. The majority of the effects of childhood conditions are not mediated by adult and community conditions. The results also show that social mobility and health in later life are linked in complex ways and that psychosocial factors have marginal explanatory power for the effects of socioeconomic conditions. Overall, this study provides new longitudinal evidence from China to support the notion that health and mortality at older ages are influenced by long-term and dynamic processes structured by the social stratification system. We discuss our findings in the context of the life course and ecological perspective, emphasizing that human development is influenced by a nexus of social experiences that impact individuals throughout life.     

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.     

The influence of cause-specific mortality conditions on the age pattern of mortality with special reference to Taiwan

Abstract This paper discusses the relationship between the level of mortality at ages one to four, on one hand, and five to 34 on the other. This relationship has been observed to vary considerably among mortality schedules at different levels of mortality and even among schedules at the same general level of mortality. This variation is shown among the modem life table systems of the Regional Model Life Tables and the United Nations Model Life Tables. Controlling for the leyel ofmortality from age five to age 34, the West Tables and the United Nations Tables embody approximately the same 'average' relationship between early childhood and adult mortality. Relatively to this average relationship, the South and East Tables consistently display higher childhood mortality rates for a given level of adult mortality. Indeed, the childhood rates of the South Table are twice those of the West Tables over a range of life expectancy at birth from 40 to 70 years. The relationship between childhood and adult mortality from 1957 to 1968, a period of rapid mortality decline, was investigated in Taiwan. In 1957, the Taiwanese data reflected the severe childhood mortality of the South Model Tables. However, by 1968, due to an especially large decline in childhood mortality, this relationship was more moderate and resembled the mortality pattern of the West or East Model Tables. An analysis of the decline in cause-specific mortality during the period revealed that a dramatic decline in childhood mortality from gastro-enteritis was primarily responsible for the shift in the relationship between childhood and adult mortality in Taiwan. It is asserted that, while any of several diseases which result in fatalities primarily among children of pre-school ages, could cause relatively severe childhood mortality, gastro-enteritis is likely to be a primary contributor to such an age pattern. This assertion is based on the fact that, especially in the developing areas of the world, malnutrition and gastro-enteritis are usually precipitating and complicating factors of other childhood diseases. A limited test of this hypothesis was provided by considering the causal components of childhood mortality rates in two populations known, for certain periods, to have exhibited relatively severe childhood mortality conditions; Spain and Portugal. For the years in which those populations were characterized by the South mortality pattern, gastro-enteritis was a principal cause of mortality in childhood. Moreover, with the decline in mortality from gastro-enteritis, the mortality pattern in Spain and Portugal no longer exhibited childhood mortality rates which were severe relative to those of adult life. The implications of these findings for the analysis of mortality conditions in many areas of the developing world, where the gastro-enteritis malnutrition syndrome annually claims a heavy toll of life in early childhood, are not clear. In those areas, the effect of this syndrome on the age pattern of mortality could be offset by special conditions inflating adult mortality rates. Nevertheless, in circumstances where there is evidence indicating substantial childhood mortality from this syndrome and no evidence indicating compensating severe adult mortality, there is reason to suspect that the existing mortality pattern reflects the relatively severe childhood mortality conditions of the South Model Tables. Additionally, where mortality from the gastro-enteritis malnutrition syndrome has been severe in past years, but has been reduced to low levels in recent years, it is probable that the relationship between childhood and adult mortality will shift in favour of the former - quite possibly, in the manner of Taiwan, from a South to an East or West age pattern.     

The life course of gay and lesbian youth: an immodest proposal for the study of lives

The authors raise questions about several fundamental assumptions and methods regarding study of the development of gay and lesbian youth. Primary among these are the validity of reliance on respondents' recollections regarding their childhood and adolescent experiences; inferences about developmental processes and outcomes made on the basis of cross-sectional samples; the time-specific, cohort-bound nature of many previous constructs and findings; and the persistent search for continuities between childhood gender behavior and adult sexual orientation. In consequence, the emerging body of theory is largely a developmental psychology of the remembered past. Strategies are suggested for longitudinal, prospective research on homosexual adolescents, shifting attention from child-based, "causal" models to those of adolescent and adult-centered perspectives. Aimed at understanding life changes and the developmental processes and course of negotiating them, longitudinal methods will more accurately reflect current experiences of gay and lesbian youth coming of age in a unique historical context. Findings from studies of the life course have direct implications for modification of current developmental theories, particularly those that can inform gay and lesbian-sensitive clinical services for all age groups.     

Gender, educational attainment, and the impact of parental migration on children left behind

Estimation of the causal effect of parental migration on children’s educational attainment is complicated by the fact that migrants and nonmigrants are likely to differ in unobservable ways that also affect children’s educational outcomes. This paper suggests a novel way of addressing this selection problem by looking within the family to exploit variation in siblings’ ages at the time of parental migration. The basic assumption underlying the analysis is that parental migration will have no effect on the educational outcomes of children who are at least 20?years old because they have already completed their education. Their younger siblings, in contrast, may still be in school, and thus will be affected by the parental migration experience. The results point to a statistically significant positive effect of paternal US migration on education for girls, suggesting that pushing a father’s US migration earlier in his daughter’s life can lead to an increase in her educational attainment of up to 1?year relative to delaying migration until after she has turned 20?years old. In contrast, paternal domestic migration has no statistically significant effect on educational attainment for girls or boys, suggesting that father absence does not play a major role in determining children’s educational outcomes. Instead, these results suggest that the marginal dollars from US migrant remittances appear to enable families to further educate their daughters. Thus, policymakers should view international migration as a potential pathway by which families raise educational attainments of girls in particular.     

Gender differences in the link between childhood socioeconomic conditions and heart attack risk in adulthood

A growing body of evidence shows that childhood socioeconomic status (SES) is predictive of disease risk in later life, with those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds more likely to experience poor adult-health outcomes. Most of these studies, however are based on middle-aged male populations and pay insufficient attention to the pathways between childhood risks and specific adult disorders. This article examines gender differences in the link between childhood SES and heart attack risk trajectories and the mechanisms by which early environments affect future disease risk. By using methods that model both latent and path-specific influences, we identify heterogeneity in early life conditions and human, social, and health capital in adulthood that contribute to diverse heart attack risk trajectories between and among men and women as they age into their 60s and 70s. We find that key risk factors for heart attack operate differently for men and women. For men, childhood SES does not differentiate those at low, increasing, and high risk for heart attack. In contrast, women who grew up without a father and/or under adverse economic conditions are the most likely to experience elevated risk for heart attack, even after we adjust for the unequal distribution of working and living conditions, social relationships, access to health care, and adult lifestyle behaviors that influence health outcomes.     

Causes and consequences of early-life health

We examine the consequences of child health for economic and health outcomes in adulthood, using height as a marker of childhood health. After reviewing previous evidence, we present a conceptual framework that highlights data limitations and methodological problems that complicate the study of this topic. We then present estimates of the associations between height and a range of outcomes—including schooling, employment, earnings, health, and cognitive ability—measured in five data sets from early to late adulthood. These results indicate that, on average, taller individuals attain higher levels of education. Height is also positively associated with better economic, health, and cognitive outcomes. These associations are only partially explained by the higher average educational attainment of taller individuals. We then use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 Children and Young Adults survey to document the associations between health, cognitive development, and growth in childhood. Even among children with the same mother, taller siblings score better on cognitive tests and progress through school more quickly. Part of the differences found between siblings arises from differences in their birth weights and lengths attributable to mother’s behaviors while pregnant. Taken together, these results support the hypothesis that childhood health influences health and economic status throughout adulthood.     

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.     

Comparing Observed and Unobserved Components of Childhood: Evidence From Finnish Register Data on Midlife Mortality From Siblings and Their Parents

In this study, we argue that the long arm of childhood that determines adult mortality should be thought of as comprising an observed part and its unobserved counterpart, reflecting the observed socioeconomic position of individuals and their parents and unobserved factors shared within a family. Our estimates of the observed and unobserved parts of the long arm of childhood are based on family-level variance in a survival analytic regression model, using siblings nested within families as the units of analysis. The study uses a sample of Finnish siblings born between 1936 and 1950 obtained from Finnish census data. Individuals are followed from ages 35 to 72. To explain familial influence on mortality, we use demographic background factors, the socioeconomic position of the parents, and the individuals’ own socioeconomic position at age 35 as predictors of all-cause and cause-specific mortality. The observed part—demographic and socioeconomic factors, including region; number of siblings; native language; parents’ education and occupation; and individuals’ income, occupation, tenancy status, and education—accounts for between 10 % and 25 % of the total familial influence on mortality. The larger part of the influence of the family on mortality is not explained by observed individual and parental socioeconomic position or demographic background and thus remains an unobserved component of the arm of childhood. This component highlights the need to investigate the influence of childhood circumstances on adult mortality in a comprehensive framework, including demographic, social, behavioral, and genetic information from the family of origin.     

The Effects of Childhood SNAP Use and Neighborhood Conditions on Adult Body Mass Index

The disproportionate number of individuals who are obese or overweight in the low-income U.S. population has raised interest in the influence of neighborhood conditions and public assistance programs on weight and health. Generally, neighborhood effects and program participation effects have been explored in separate studies. We unite these two areas of inquiry, using the 1968-2005 Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) to examine the long-term effects of childhood Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participation, neighborhood conditions, and the interaction of these two, on adult body mass index (BMI). Using sibling fixed-effects models to account for selection bias, we find that relative to children in other low-income families, children in SNAP-recipient households have higher average adult BMI values. However, the effects of childhood SNAP usage are sensitive to both residential neighborhood and age at receipt. For those growing up in advantaged neighborhoods, projected adult BMI is higher for children in SNAP-recipient households than for children in low-income, nonrecipient households. In contrast, for those growing up in less-advantaged areas, adult BMI differences between children in SNAP-recipient and those in low-income, nonrecipient households are small. SNAP usage during preschool years (0 to 4) has no impact on adult BMI scores. However, at later childhood ages, the time elapsed receiving SNAP income increases adult BMI values relative to a condition of low-income nonreceipt.     

农村家庭子女养老行为的示范作用研究

西安交通大学人口与发展研究所于2001年5月在安徽省巢湖市农村地区进行了"安徽老年人生活状况"抽样问卷调查,并在2003年11月、2006年12月、2009年6月进行了三次跟踪调查。利用调查数据,对孝文化观念下的农村家庭中子女养老行为之间的相互影响进行实证研究。研究发现,兄弟姐妹间的养老行为存在示范作用,并对老年人获得子女供养的状况有重要影响。结果表明,无论经济支持还是生活照料,兄弟姐妹分担程度越高,子女个体越有可能提高对老年父母的支持;而子女的分担程度越高,老年父母获得的经济支持和生活照料越多。     

Sex Differentials in Childhood Feeding,Health Care,and Nutritional Status in India

Strong preference for sons in South Asia is well documented, but evidence on female disadvantage in childhood feeding, health care, and nutritional status is inconclusive. This article examines sex differentials in indicators of childhood feeding, health care, and nutritional status of children under age 3 by birth order and sex composition of older living siblings. Data are from India's 1992–93 and 1998–99 National Family Health Surveys. The analysis finds three reasons for inconclusive evidence on female disadvantage in aggregate analyses. First, discrimination against girls is limited to the relatively small fraction of children of certain birth orders and sex compositions of older siblings. Second, discrimination against girls when boys are in short supply and discrimination against boys when girls are in short supply cancel each other to some extent. Third, some discrimination against girls (e.g., in exclusive breastfeeding at 6–9 months) is nutritionally beneficial to girls. Separate analyses for North and South India find that gender discrimination is as common in the South as in the North, where son preference is generally much stronger.     

Males’ Later-Life Mortality Consequences of Coresidence With Paternal Grandparents: Evidence From Northeast China, 1789–1909

In this study, we investigate the effect of early-life coresidence with paternal grandparents on male mortality risks in adulthood and older age in northeast China from 1789 to 1909. Despite growing interest in the influence of grandparents on child outcomes, few studies have examined the effect of coresidence with grandparents in early life on mortality in later life. We find that coresidence with paternal grandmothers in childhood is associated with higher mortality risks for males in adulthood. This may reflect the long-term effects of conflicts between mothers and their mothers-in-law. These results suggest that in extended families, patterns of coresidence in childhood may have long-term consequences for mortality, above and beyond the effects of common environmental and genetic factors, even when effects on childhood mortality are not readily apparent.     

Parental investment responses to a low birth weight outcome: who compensates and who reinforces?

This study analyzes how parental investment responds to a low birth weight (LBW) outcome and finds important differences in investment responses by maternal education. High school dropouts reinforce a LBW outcome by providing less investment in the human capital of their LBW children relative to their normal birth weight children whereas higher educated mothers compensate by investing more in their LBW children. In addition, an increase in the number of LBW siblings present in the home raises investment in a child, which is consistent with reinforcement, but this positive effect tends to be concentrated among high school dropouts. These results suggest that studies analyzing the effects of LBW on child outcomes that do not account for heterogeneity in investment responses to a LBW outcome by maternal education may overestimate effects of LBW on child outcomes for those born to low-educated mothers and underestimate such effects for those born to high-educated mothers.     

教育如何影响农村劳动力转移--基于年龄与世代效应的分析

本研究分析了教育是如何影响农村劳动力在纯务农、兼业和纯务工之间的就业选择,以及该选择随年龄增长和世代更替的演变趋势。研究发现,教育在总体上促进了非农就业,但在不同世代的生命历程中有着不尽相同的作用机制。在较早出生的世代中,教育对兼业和纯务工的促进作用是一致的。但在晚近出生的世代中,更高的教育水平对纯务工就业有着非常显著的影响,而对兼业选择影响甚微。在老一代农民中,教育对兼业和纯务工的促进作用随年龄增长而有所减弱;而在新一代农民中,教育对纯务工的促进作用随着年龄增长而迅速加强,呈现教育的积累性优势。此外,老一代农民的生命历程中有一个从务工到务农的回归;新一代农民向非农行业转移则呈现不可逆的趋势,教育对此起到了促进作用。     

Economic Assimilation and Skill Acquisition: Evidence From the Occupational Sorting of Childhood Immigrants

We study the economic assimilation of childhood immigrants to the United States. The linguistic distance between English and the predominant language in one’s country of birth interacted with age at arrival is shown to be closely connected to occupational sorting in adulthood. By applying big-data techniques to occupations’ detailed skill requirements, we provide evidence that childhood immigrants from English-distant countries who arrived after the primary school years reveal comparative advantages in tasks distinct from those for which (close to) Anglophone immigrants are better suited. Meanwhile, those who arrive at younger ages specialize in a bundle of skills very similar to that supplied by observationally equivalent workers. These patterns emerge even after we net out the effects of formal education. Such findings are compatible with the existence of different degrees of complementarity between relative English-learning potential at arrival and the acquisition of multiple capabilities demanded in the U.S. labor market (math/logic, socioemotional, physical, and communication skills). Consistent with the investment-complementarity argument, we show that linguistic distance and age at arrival also play a significant role on the choice of college major within this population.     

Raising charitable children: the effects of verbal socialization and role-modeling on children’s giving

This paper uses nationally-representative data from the PSID and CDS to estimate the causal effects of two parent socialization actions—talking to children about giving and role-modeling—on children’s decisions whether or not to give to charity. We develop an identification framework based on the intra-household allocation and cultural transmission literatures that shows how different assumptions about parental response to time-varying unobserved changes in children’s prosocial values can be combined with the child fixed effects estimate and the difference between siblings’ over-time-differences estimate to infer a bound on the causal effect of parental action to socialize their children. Under the identifying assumption we think is most reasonable for socializing the willingness to give to charity, that parents treat the socialization actions of others as cultural substitutes, our estimates imply that talking to children about giving raises the probability of children’s giving by at least .13. We find no evidence that parental role-modeling affects children’s giving, except among non-African-American girls. The identification framework and substantive results have implications for those with a general interest in using data from naturalistic settings to estimate causal effects of parental socialization actions, those interested in the external validity of laboratory findings, and those interested in the socialization of warm glow.     

The demography of disability and the effects of immigrant history: Older Asians in the United States

Using data from the 2000 U.S. census, we compare the older Asian population with U.S.-born, non-Hispanic whites with respect to three indicators of disability. Insofar as any Asian "advantage" in health vis-a-vis whites exists among the population aged 65 and over, our evidence suggests that it occurs primarily among the U.S.-born segments of this population. We also investigate how differences in disability levels among Asian immigrant groups are influenced by country of birth and by the combined effects of duration of residence in the United States and life cycle stage at entry. These results highlight the diversity of the older Asian population with respect to the ways in which immigration and origin history are linked to disability outcomes. We conclude that in later life, immigrant status confers few disability advantages among the Asian population in the United States.     

Birth order and health of newborns

We examine birth order differences in health of newborns and follow the children throughout childhood using high-quality administrative data on individuals born in Denmark between 1981 and 2010. Family fixed effects models show a positive and robust effect of birth order on health at birth; firstborn children are less healthy at birth. During earlier pregnancies, women are more likely to smoke, receive more prenatal care, and are more likely to suffer a medical pregnancy complication, suggesting worse maternal health. We further show that the health disadvantage of firstborns persists in the first years of life, disappears by age seven, and becomes a health advantage in adolescence. In contrast, later-born children are throughout childhood more likely to suffer an injury. The results on health in adolescence are consistent with previous evidence of a firstborn advantage in education and with the hypothesis that postnatal investments differ between first- and later-born children.     

What is Most Important: Social Factors, Health Selection, and Adolescent Educational Achievement

This paper explores the relative importance of social factors and health measures in predicting educational achievement in early and late adolescence using population-based administrative data. The sample was made up of 41,943 children born in Manitoba, Canada between 1982 and 1989 and remaining in the province until age 18. Multilevel modeling nests each individual (level 1) within a family (level 2) residing within a neighborhood (level 3). Most important in predicting adolescent achievement were a broad socioeconomic status index (and a narrower measure of household income), being on social assistance, mother’s age at first birth, gender, residential mobility, the presence of ADHD/Conduct disorders, and measures of family functioning (child taken into care or offered protection services and family structure history). Family size, birth order, and newborn characteristics (birthweight, APGAR, gestational age) were statistically significant but of little importance in explaining the outcomes. Both examining regression coefficients and systematically omitting variables showed social factors (often emphasized by epidemiologists) to have markedly greater effects than the combination of health measures (often stressed by economists) in predicting achievement. However, mental health in childhood is identified as among the important predictors. Record linkage across population datasets from health, education, and family services ministries allowed: tracking health and educational attainment at different times in a child’s life, following a large number of cases across childhood, considerable sensitivity testing, controlling for unmeasured family and neighborhood effects, generating an extensive list of predictors, estimating effect sizes, and comparing Manitoba results with those of well-known American studies.