The long-term effects of poor childhood health: An assessment and application of retrospective reports

This study assesses retrospective childhood health reports and examines childhood health as a predictor of adult health. The results suggest that such reports are of reasonable reliability as to warrant their judicious use in population research. They also demonstrate a large positive relationship between childhood and adult health. Compared with excellent, very good, or good childhood health, poor childhood health is associated with more than three times greater odds of having poor adult self-rated health and twice the risk of a work-limiting disability or a chronic health condition. These associations are independent of childhood and current socioeconomic position and health-related risk behaviors.     

Refining the association between education and health: The effects of quantity, credential, and selectivity

We refine the established association between education and health by distinguishing three aspects of a person's education (quantity, credential, and selectivity) and by examining the mechanisms through which they may correlate with health. Data are from the 1995 Aging, Status, and the Sense of Control Survey, a representative U.S. national telephone survey of 2,593 respondents aged 18 to 95, with an oversample of elderly. Results show that physical functioning and perceived health increase significantly with years of formal education and with college selectivity for those with a bachelor's or higher degree, adjusting for age, sex, race, marital status, and parental education. The credential of a college degree has no net association with physical functioning and perceived health beyond the amount attributable to the additional years of schooling. Of the three aspects of education, years of schooling has the largest effect. Most of that association appears attributable to its correlation with work and economic conditions, social psychological resources, and health lifestyle. A large portion of the net association of college selectivity with physical functioning and perceived health appears attributable to health lifestyle.     

Population aging, health care, and growth: a comment on the effects of capital accumulation

In a recent paper, Hashimoto and Tabata (J Popul Econ 23:571–593, 2010) present a theoretical model in which the increase in the rate of dependence due to aging of the population leads to a reallocation of labor from non-health to health production and, as a consequence, to a decline in economic growth. We argue that these results rely heavily on assumptions of a “small economy” and perfect capital mobility, which tie down the amount of capital. In this paper, we proceed by analyzing the case of an economy in which the availability of capital is endogenously determined by domestic savings. We find that the new “capital accumulation effect” is opposite to the previous “dependency rate effect,” leaving the effect on economic growth ambiguous. In particular, if the former prevailed, population aging would foster economic growth, a result that finds support in recent empirical work.     

Everything changes to stay the same: persistent global health inequalities amidst new therapeutic opportunities and mobilities for Filipino nurses

ABSTRACT

The global migration of Filipino nurses has received significant attention, yet little is known of these healthcare workers’ experiences and mobilities within the Philippines. I explore the experiences and narratives of Filipino nurses living in Manila, some of whom have no desires to migrate. I uncover the often novel forms of therapeutic mobilities undertaken by these nurses, focusing on call centre nursing and entrepreneurship as key alternative career pathways within the realms of ‘therapeutics’. Through interrogating the various mobilities undertaken by nurses – physical mobilities and migration, socioeconomic mobilities and occupational mobilities in the form of a career change – it becomes clear that international physical mobility is no longer key. Nevertheless, Filipino nurses continue to provide care in global contexts in novel ‘therapeutic’ industries and doing so allows them to increase their socioeconomic mobility.     

Prenatal stress,health, and health behaviours during the COVID-19 pandemic: An international survey

BackgroundPregnant women’s stress, mental and physical health, and health behaviours can have important implications for maternal and child health outcomes.AimTo examine pregnant women’s levels of stress, mental and physical health, and health behaviours during the COVID-19 pandemic.MethodsA cross-sectional survey was conducted online, with recruitment and data collection occurring between 16/6/20 and 17/7/20. Participants were pregnant women recruited via online pregnancy/parenting communities. Participants self-reported their levels of general stress, pregnancy-specific stress and COVID-19 related stress, mental and physical health, general health behaviours, and COVID-19 related health behaviours.Findings573 pregnant women participated in the survey. Participants were most commonly resident in the United States (42.6%, n = 243), Ireland (41.2%, n = 235) or the United Kingdom (10%, n = 57). The majority (80.0%, n = 457) were married and educated to degree level or above (79.3, n = 453). Pregnant women reported high levels of pregnancy-specific and COVID-19-related stress, and low levels of mental and physical health, during the pandemic. Encouragingly, pregnant women in this study generally reported high levels of adherence to public health advice and pregnancy health behaviours. Stress and general mental health outcomes were best predicted by well-being factors (including stress and social support). Health impairing behaviours (e.g. poor diet) were predicted by both well-being and demographic factors.DiscussionInterventions targeting pregnancy- and pandemic-specific stress at the population level will be essential to support mental health and minimise adverse outcomes for women and children during the pandemic.     

Parental imprisonment,the prison boom,and the concentration of childhood disadvantage

Although much research has focused on how imprisonment transforms the life course of disadvantaged black men, researchers have paid little attention to how parental imprisonment alters the social experience of childhood. This article estimates the risk of parental imprisonment by age 14 for black and white children born in 1978 and 1990. This article also estimates the risk of parental imprisonment for children whose parents did not finish high school, finished high school only, or attended college. Results show the following: (1) 1 in 40 white children born in 1978 and 1 in 25 white children born in 1990 had a parent imprisoned; (2) 1 in 7 black children born in 1978 and 1 in 4 black children born in 1990 had a parent imprisoned; (3) inequality in the risk of parental imprisonment between white children of college-educated parents and all other children is growing; and (4) by age 14, 50.5% of black children born in 1990 to high school dropouts had a father imprisoned. These estimates, robustness checks, and extensions to longitudinal data indicate that parental imprisonment has emerged as a novel—and distinctively American—childhood risk that is concentrated among black children and children of low-education parents.     

Fertility of rural China: effects of local family planning and health programs

The rationing of births in China after the 1979 announcement of the one-child family policy has been held responsible for the rapid decrease in Chinese fertility, whereas other observers have noted that parallel fertility declines occurred with voluntary behavior in other East and Southeast Asian countries. This paper assesses the joint contribution of local family planning and health programs, individual characteristics of women, and the development of their communities, as explanatory variables for Chinese fertility in rural areas of three provinces in 1985. Given the explicit quantitative reproductive goals of the government, an ordered Probit model for cumulative fertility is estimated for women age 15–34 and 35–49.The authors appreciate the comments on and corrections of our paper by John Ermisch and the programming assistance of Paul McGuire. The financial support of the Rockefeller Foundation is acknowledged.     

The labor market effects of national health insurance: evidence from Taiwan

This paper investigates the impacts of national health insurance on the labor market, by considering the case of Taiwan, which implemented national health insurance in March 1995. Taiwan’s national health insurance is financed by premiums, which are proportional to an employee’s salary. These premiums may introduce distortions to the labor market. Based on repeated cross-sections of individual data we find that, on average, private sector employees’ work hours declined relative to their public sector counterparts, whereas their relative wage rates were almost unchanged with the introduction of national health insurance. The results suggest that neither private sector employers nor their employees were able to shift their premium burden to each other.      

Gay men from heterosexual marriages: attitudes,behaviors, childhood experiences,and reasons for marriage

In the current study, the attitudes, behaviors and experiences of 26 gay or bisexual men who were married to a woman are examined. Data are provided on childhood family background and experiences, sexual practices with men, reasons for entering marriage, and the "coming out" process. The frequency of childhood sexual experiences was associated with unsafe sexual practices with other men in adulthood. Attitudes toward lesbians and gay men were more negative now than at the time of marriage. The two most frequent reasons for marriage were that it seemed natural, and a desire for children and family life. The results support the hypothesis that internalised homophobia is a factor that leads men into mixed-orientation marriages. Cognitive consistency theory is used to explain the eventual marriage breakdown.     

Social indicators,health policy,and the elderly

Health-service researchers, policy analysts, and politicians face several problems in attempting to evaluate health care programs and make relevant policy decisions. The possible rôle of social indicators is discussed in these regards and is applied in an important health care context, the utilization of ancillary health services by the elderly. A Western Canadian research study substantiates the academic and applied value of the social indicators approach with respect to health services planning, research, and policy decision-making.     

Aging society,health and the environment

In a general-equilibrium OLG model with endogenous longevity, a political economy and a social planner solution are contrasted mainly with respect to public supplies of health care and environment protection. The latter is relatively more supported by the young because its beneficial effect on longevity takes more time to occur but then lasts longer; while the old relatively prefer health spending. With population aging, political claims for health care expenditure are self-reinforcing. This framework is able to generate a quite rich set of results. In the political economy larger health care/consumption and health care/environmental quality ratios are implemented. Changes in risk aversion, production pollution, health inputs’ elasticity of substitution may have opposite impacts across regimes. More complete annuity markets improve welfare. Further comparative statics is analyzed.     

Measuring educational inequalities: a method and an application to Albania

In this paper, we investigate whether educational inequalities stem from differences between families or within families. In a poor economy, schooling is costly for parents, and education is likely to be unequally distributed among siblings. Drawing on discrete ordered choice models, we present a simple method to estimate the between and within components of both the explained and unexplained variance in education. For our empirical analysis, we use the Living Standard Measurement Study survey conducted in 2002 in Albania. We explain about 40% of the total variance and find that inequalities in education are mainly due to differences between families. Differences within families are smaller and are far less easily explained.     

The effects of teenage childbearing on the short- and long-term health behaviors of mothers

A national sample of US teenagers combined with a complementary sample of US adults are used to examine the effects of teenage childbearing on health behaviors by comparing female siblings in both the teenage sample and a sample of adults. Additionally, miscarriage information available in the teenage sample is used to form comparison groups. Unlike previous estimates of the effects of teenage childbearing on health behaviors, the results using these US samples and research designs suggest that teenage childbearing has negligible effects on several measures of unhealthy behaviors for mothers and may be protective for drug use and binge drinking.     

The effects of teenage childbearing on the short- and long-term health behaviors of mothers

A national sample of US teenagers combined with a complementary sample of US adults are used to examine the effects of teenage childbearing on health behaviors by comparing female siblings in both the teenage sample and a sample of adults. Additionally, miscarriage information available in the teenage sample is used to form comparison groups. Unlike previous estimates of the effects of teenage childbearing on health behaviors, the results using these US samples and research designs suggest that teenage childbearing has negligible effects on several measures of unhealthy behaviors for mothers and may be protective for drug use and binge drinking.     

A chronology of the study of older women's health: data, discoveries, and future directions

Women have been traditionally ignored in health and medical research. Some reasons for this mentality include a fear of harming a woman's reproductive ability, fear that variations in the menstrual cycle could confound results, fear that a woman's body could not withstand the rigors of clinical research, and an assumption that male and female body chemistry is similar. Thankfully, these fears and assumptions are being challenged and several major data-bases, designed specifically to study women's health, have emerged. The purpose of this paper is to: (1) characterize the major longitudinal studies on women's health, (2) summarize the major discoveries from these studies that are relevant to older women, and (3) pose several future directions for research throughout the paper.     

Development,inequality, health care,and mortality at the older ages: a cross-national analysis

We examine mortality at ages 50 and above in female populations of 38 countries and control for variation in quality of the mortality data. We find that economic development, economic distributional inequality, and basic primary health care have independent cross-national effects on cause of death structures and that these effects are not uniform across the age intervals of interest. As improvements occur in level of living and heath care, age-specific death rates decline except at the oldest ages, at which point they may increase. Our results are interpreted in terms of their relevance for mortality research, theory, and policy.     

Racial inequalities in housing: An examiation of recent trends

Changes in racial differences in homeownership and objective indicators of housing quality are examined using 1960 Census data and 1977 Annual Housing Survey data. Blacks, net of differences in socioeconomic status, family composition, and regional-metropolitan location, remained less likely than whites to own homes and somewhat more likely to live in older, crowded and structurally inadequate units in 1977. In general, however, net effects for race were much smaller in 1977 than in 1960. Racial differences in homeownership and crowding were smaller among recent movers than among the total sample in 1977, suggesting continued but gradual improvement in housing conditions for blacks in the latter 1970s.