The Associations Between Parental Socio-Economic Conditions,Childhood Intelligence,Adult Personality Traits,Social Status and Mental Well-Being

This study explored a longitudinal data set of 5,090 adults examining the associations between parental social status indicators (measured at birth), childhood intelligence (measured at age 11), personality traits, educational achievement and occupational prestige in relation to mental well-being (all measured at age 50). Correlational analysis showed that parental social status indicators and childhood intelligence were significantly associated with all of the big five personality traits (extraversion, emotional stability, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and intellect). Parental social status indicators, childhood intelligence, personality traits, education and occupation were all significant correlates of mental well-being. Structural equation modelling showed childhood intelligence was significantly associated with all the five personality traits, and family social status (indicated by parental social class, and paternal and maternal education) was significantly associated with traits intellect, extraversion, and agreeableness. All the five personality traits were significant predictors of mental well-being after taking into account the effects of family social status, childhood intelligence, own education achievement and current occupational prestige. Implications and limitations are discussed.     

The transmission of social inequality: Examination of the linkages between family socioeconomic status in childhood and educational achievement in young adulthood

The present study examines the linkages between family socioeconomic status (SES) in childhood and educational achievement in young adulthood using data from a 25-year longitudinal study of a birth cohort of over 1000 New Zealand children. Structural equation modeling of the association between latent SES at birth and educational achievement by age 25 years showed evidence of a strong association between latent SES and later educational achievement. Much of this association was mediated via two pathways relating to child cognitive ability and family educational aspirations; family economic resources and school factors did not mediate the association. However, even when the major theoretical pathways were taken into account, a substantial component of the latent SES/educational achievement correlation remained unexplained.     

Reproducing inequalities: Luck, wallets, and the enduring effects of childhood health

In this article, I argue that research on social stratification, on intergenerational transmission of inequalities, and on the theory of factor payments and wage determination will be strengthened by studying the role played by early childhood health. I show that the inclusion of such a factor requires researchers to integrate theories in each of these fields with new theories linking early childhood health conditions and events that occur at later stages in the life course of individuals, particularly physical and mental health as well as disability and mortality. The empirical evidence I gather shows that early childhood health matters for the achievement of or social accession to, adult social class positions. Even if the magnitude of associations is not overwhelming, it is not weaker than that found between adult social accession and other, more conventional and better-studied individual characteristics, such as educational attainment. It is very likely that the evidence presented in this article grossly underplays the importance of early childhood health for adult socioeconomic achievement.     

The spread of health services and fertility Transition

We use detailed measures of social change over time, increased availability of various health services, and couples' fertility behaviors to document the independent effects of health services on fertility limitation. Our investigation focuses on a setting in rural Nepal that experienced a transition from virtually no use of birth control in 1945 to the widespread use of birth control by 1995 to limit fertility. Changes in the availability of many different dimensions of health services provide the means to evaluate their independent influences on contraceptive use to limit childbearing. Findings show that family planning as well as maternal and child health services have independent effects on the rate of ending childbearing. For example, the provision of child immunization services increases the rate of contraceptive use to limit fertility independently of family planning services. Additionally, new Geographic Information System (GIS)-based measures also allow us to test many alternative models of the spatial distribution of services. These tests reveal that complex, geographically defined measures of all health service providers outperform more simple measures. These results provide new information about the consequences of maternal and child health services and the importance of these services in shaping fertility transitions.     

<Emphasis Type="Bold">Neighborhoods,Schools, and Academic Achievement: A Formal Mediation Analysis of Contextual Effects on Reading and Mathematics Abilities</Emphasis>

Although evidence indicates that neighborhoods affect educational outcomes, relatively little research has explored the mechanisms thought to mediate these effects. This study investigates whether school poverty mediates the effect of neighborhood context on academic achievement. Specifically, it uses longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, counterfactual methods, and a value-added modeling strategy to estimate the total, natural direct, and natural indirect effects of exposure to an advantaged rather than disadvantaged neighborhood on reading and mathematics abilities during childhood and adolescence. Contrary to expectations, results indicate that school poverty is not a significant mediator of neighborhood effects during either developmental period. Although moving from a disadvantaged neighborhood to an advantaged neighborhood is estimated to substantially reduce subsequent exposure to school poverty and improve academic achievement, school poverty does not play an important mediating role because even the large differences in school composition linked to differences in neighborhood context appear to have no appreciable effect on achievement. An extensive battery of sensitivity analyses indicates that these results are highly robust to unobserved confounding, alternative model specifications, alternative measures of school context, and measurement error, which suggests that neighborhood effects on academic achievement are largely due to mediating factors unrelated to school poverty.     

Prenatal Health,Educational Attainment,and Intergenerational Inequality: The Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1966 Study

In this article, we study the effects of prenatal health on educational attainment and on the reproduction of family background inequalities in education. Using Finnish birth cohort data, we analyze several maternal and fetal health variables, many of which have not been featured in the literature on long-term socioeconomic effects of health despite the effects of these variables on birth and short-term health outcomes. We find strong negative effects of mother’s prenatal smoking on educational attainment, which are stronger if the mother smoked heavily but are not significant if she quit during the first trimester. Anemia during pregnancy is also associated with lower levels of attained education. Other indicators of prenatal health (pre-pregnancy obesity, mother’s antenatal depressed mood, hypertension and preeclampsia, early prenatal care visits, premature birth, and small size for gestational age) do not predict educational attainment. Our measures explain little of the educational inequalities by parents’ class or education. However, smoking explains 12%—and all health variables together, 19%—of the lower educational attainment of children born to unmarried mothers. Our findings point to the usefulness of proximate health measures in addition to general ones. They also point to the potentially important role played by early health in intergenerational processes.     

Resolved Parental Infertility and Children’s Educational Achievement

Although difficulty conceiving a child has long been a major medical and social preoccupation, it has not been considered as a predictor of long-term outcomes in children ultimately conceived. This is consistent with a broader gap in knowledge regarding the consequences of parental health for educational performance in offspring. Here we address that omission, asking how resolved parental infertility relates to children’s academic achievement. In a sample of all Swedish births between 1988 and 1995, we find that involuntary childlessness prior to either a first or a second birth is associated with lower academic achievement (both test scores and GPA) in children at age 16, even if the period of infertility was prior to a sibling’s birth rather than the child’s own. Our results support a conceptualization of infertility as a cumulative physical and social experience with effects extending well beyond the point at which a child is born, and emphasize the need to better understand how specific parental health conditions constrain children’s educational outcomes.     

Adaptation and Dissonance in Quality of Life: A Case Study in Mekelle,Ethiopia

This study aimed to determine predictability of life satisfaction by focusing on social support, substance abuse, socio-demographic factors as well as received health services from medical and traditional centers in the elderly with dementia. The subjects were 1,210 non-institutionalized Malaysian elderly with cognitive problems. In addition, age, ethnicity, sex differences, marital status, educational level, social support, substance abuse and receiving health services were evaluated to predict the risk of falls in samples. Social support was measured by Lubben score. Substance abuse was referred to smoking per day, addiction to alcohol consumption as well as dependency to medications. Health care supports, which were received by individuals included medical and traditional treatments. Life satisfaction was measured by asking in general ‘Are you satisfied with your current life’. The multiple logistic regression analysis was used to determine the effects of contributing variables on life satisfaction in respondents. Approximately 83 % of subjects reported that they were satisfied with their current life. The results of multiple regression analysis showed that marital status (OR = 1.98), traditional treatments (OR = 0.43), social support (OR = 2.28) and educational level (OR = 1.79) significantly affected life satisfaction in samples (p < 0.05). Furthermore, age, ethnicity, sex differences, substance abuse and medical treatments were not significant predictors of life satisfaction (p > 0.05). It was concluded that social support, being married and education increased life satisfaction in subjects but traditional treatments decreased life satisfaction.     

Schools,Neighborhoods and Selection: Outcomes Across Metropolitan Los Angeles

What is the relationship between school segregation and neighborhood segregation across school districts in Los Angeles County, and are school district outcomes on reading and mathematics scores related to levels of school segregation across these districts? We compute segregation scores using US tract level data for 2000 and use reading and mathematics scores from California State tests. Data from the Los Angeles family and neighborhood survey are used to track individual residential changes and differences in the associated Woodcock Johnson scores. We show that there is a close link between levels of school segregation and neighborhood segregation and that many suburban school districts are relatively integrated across both neighborhoods and schools. When we examine average school district outcomes on reading and mathematics scores we do not find any relationship with levels of segregation. At the same time there is clear evidence of spatial sorting with poorer and lower scoring children moving into school districts (or zones with poorer achieving schools). The multi-level models of segregation and achievement show that the variance in achievement levels across districts is significantly greater than across schools within districts.     

Adult Materialism/Postmaterialism And Later Mental Health: The Role Of Self-Efficacy

This study used data from the British National Child Development Study (NCDS) to examine the relationship between materialism/postmaterialism and later mental health. Materialism/postmaterialism was assessed (using Inglehart’s 4-item index) at age 33 and mental health (measured by the GHQ-12) was assessed at age 42. It was found that after controlling for socio-economic status at birth, father and mother involvement in early childhood, parental family structure throughout childhood, psychological maladjustment in adolescence, educational attainment and contemporaneous factors (labour force participation, self-reported physical health, belonging to a religion, and being partnered) materialism was negatively related to ill mental health in men. The relationship between materialism and later mental health became insignificant, however, once self-efficacy was entered in the model, suggesting that materialism was positively associated with self-efficacy which was positively related to mental health. Postmaterialism was insignificantly related to mental health in both men and women.     

Childbearing Across Partnerships in Australia,the United States,Norway, and Sweden

This article compares mothers’ experience of having children with more than one partner in two liberal welfare regimes (the United States and Australia) and two social democratic regimes (Sweden and Norway). We use survey-based union and birth histories in Australia and the United States and data from national population registers in Norway and Sweden to estimate the likelihood of experiencing childbearing across partnerships at any point in the childbearing career. We find that births with new partners constitute a substantial proportion of all births in each country we study. Despite quite different arrangements for social welfare, the determinants of childbearing across partnerships are very similar. Women who had their first birth at a very young age or who are less well-educated are most likely to have children with different partners. The educational gradient in childbearing across partnerships is also consistently negative across countries, particularly in contrast to educational gradients in childbearing with the same partner. The risk of childbearing across partnerships increased dramatically in all countries from the 1980s to the 2000s, and educational differences also increased, again, in both liberal and social democratic welfare regimes.     

Birth Outcome Measures and Infant Mortality

Recent studies have proposed alternative birth outcome measures as means of assessing infant mortality risk; nevertheless, there hasn’t yet been an integrated analysis of these approaches. We review 14 strategies, including various combinations of birth weight, gestational age, fetal growth rate, and Apgar scores—as predictors of early neonatal, late neonatal, and postneonatal mortality, and infant mortality. Using the NCHS linked birth/infant death file for 2001, we construct multivariate logit models and assess the associations between each of the 14 key birth outcome measures and four mortality outcomes. We find that all evaluated birth outcome measures are strong predictors, but Apgar scores are the strongest among all models for all outcomes, independent of birth weight and gestational age. Apgar scores’ predictive power is stronger for Mexican-, white-, and female-infants than for black- and male-infants. Second, all birth outcome measures remain significantly associated with mortality, but their predictive power reduces drastically over time. These findings suggest a rule of thumb for predicting infant mortality odds: when available, Apgar scores should always be included along with birth weight (or LBW status) and gestational age. Additionally, these findings argue for the continued study of low birthweight, gestational age, and Apgar scores as independently salient health outcomes.     

How Durable Are Ethnoracial Segregation and Spatial Disadvantage? Intergenerational Contextual Mobility in France

Building on emerging research into intergenerational contextual mobility, I use longitudinal data from France (1990–2008) to investigate the extent to which second-generation immigrants and the French majority continue to live in similar neighborhood environments during childhood and adulthood. To explore the persistence of ethnoracial segregation and spatial disadvantage, I draw on two measures of neighborhood composition: the immigrant share and the unemployment rate. The analysis explores the individual and contextual factors underpinning intergenerational contextual mobility and variation across immigrant-origin groups. The results document a strong stability of neighborhood environments from childhood to adulthood, especially with regard to the ethnoracial composition of the neighborhood. Individual-level factors are quite weak in accounting for these patterns compared with the characteristics of the city of origin. Moreover, the degree of contextual mobility between childhood and adulthood varies across groups. I find that neighborhood environments are more stable over time for non-European second-generation immigrants. The findings offer important new empirical contributions to the French literature on the residential segregation of immigrants and will more broadly be of interest to scholars of intergenerational spatial and social mobility.     

农村计划生育家庭分享控制人口取得成果的政策研究

在我国取得的社会发展巨大成果中 ,凝结了农村计划生育家庭做出的重大贡献 ,他们为此也牺牲了一定的个人利益。他们理应受到全社会的尊重并在分享社会发展成果中得到政策的优惠。本文认为对他们的奖励和扶助制度应从孩子出生到他们进入老年期 ,包括医疗卫生、教育、就业、生产、生活和社会保障等各个方面。对他们帮助和扶助的重点放在独生子女户和双女户的能力提高上 ,增强他们的家庭养老和自我养老能力。使他们能充分分享社会发展成果 ,不会沦入边缘化和贫困化。     

The neighborhood context of racial and ethnic disparities in arrest

This study assesses the role of social context in explaining racial and ethnic disparities in arrest, with afocus on how distinct neighborhood contexts in which different racial and ethnic groups reside explain variations in criminal outcomes. To do so, I utilize a multilevel, longitudinal research design, combining individual-level data with contextual data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN). Findings reveal that black youths face multiple layers of disadvantage relative to other racial and ethnic groups, and these layers work to create differences in arrest. At the family level, results show that disadvantages in the form of unstable family structures explain much of the disparities in arrest across race and ethnicity. At the neighborhood level, black youths tend to reside in areas with both significantly higher levels of concentrated poverty than other youths as well as lower levels of collective efficacy than white youths. Variations in neighborhood tolerance of deviance across groups explain little of the arrest disparities, yet tolerance of deviance does influence the frequency with which a crime ultimately ends in an arrest. Even after accounting for relevant demographic, family, and neighborhood-level predictors, substantial residual arrest differences remain between black youths and youths of other racial and ethnic groups.     

The Best Predictors of Survival: Do They Vary by Age,Sex, and Race?

We consider a broad set of variables used by social scientists and clinicians to identify the leading predictors of five‐year survival among American adults. We address a question not considered in earlier research: Do the strongest predictors of survival vary by age, sex or race/ethnicity? The analysis uses hazard models with 30 well‐established predictors to examine five‐year survival in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. We find that the simple measure of self‐assessed health and self‐reported measures of functional ability and disability are the strongest predictors in all demographic groups, and are generally ranked considerably higher than biomarkers. Among the biomarkers, serum albumin is highly ranked in most demographic groups, whereas clinical measures of cardiovascular and metabolic function are consistently among the weakest predictors. Despite these similarities, there is substantial variation in the leading predictors across demographic groups, most notably by race and ethnicity     

Prenatal and delivery care and childhood immunization in guatemala: Do family and community matter?*

In this paper we investigate family choices about pregnancy-related care and the use of childhood immunization. Estimates obtained from a multilevel logistic model indicate that use of formal (or “modern ”) health services differs substantially by ethnicity, by social and economic factors, and by availability of health services. The results also show that family and community membership are very important determinants of the use of health care, even in the presence of controls for a large number of observed characteristics of individuals, families, and communities.     

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.

     

Understanding links between adolescent health and educational attainment

The educational and economic consequences of poor health during childhood and adolescence have become increasingly clear, with a resurgence of evidence leading researchers to reconsider the potentially significant contribution of early-life health to population welfare both within and across generations. Meaningful relationships between early-life health and educational attainment raise important questions about how health may influence educational success in young adulthood and beyond, as well as for whom its influence is strongest. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, I examine how adolescents’ health and social status act together to create educational disparities in young adulthood, focusing on two questions in particular. First, does the link between adolescent health and educational attainment vary across socioeconomic and racial/ethnic groups? Second, what academic factors explain the connection between adolescent health and educational attainment? The findings suggest that poorer health in adolescence is strongly negatively related to educational attainment, net of both observed confounders and unobserved, time-invariant characteristics within households. The reduction in attainment is particularly large for non-Hispanic white adolescents, suggesting that the negative educational consequences of poor health are not limited to only the most socially disadvantaged adolescents. Finally, I find that the link between adolescent health and educational attainment is explained by academic factors related to educational participation and, most importantly, academic performance, rather than by reduced educational expectations. These findings add complexity to our understanding of how the educational consequences of poor health apply across the social hierarchy, as well as why poor health may lead adolescents to complete less schooling.In a presidential address to the Population Association of America, Palloni (2006) emphasized the need for research on early-life health as a mechanism in the intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic status. Although poor health is well known as a consequence of childhood and family socioeconomic conditions, it is also clear that illness during childhood and adolescence has lasting educational and socioeconomic effects (Case, Fertig, and Paxson 2005; Conley and Bennett 2000; Smith 2005). What remains less clear is how health early in life influences educational success in young adulthood and beyond. Do those with a health disadvantage graduate from high school at lower rates, for example, because they perform poorly in school or because they and their families develop reduced expectations for the future? In addition, how do race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status complicate these relationships? Our understanding of how health’s influence on educational attainment differs across groups is unclear.This article considers these complexities by asking several questions. It confirms that health during adolescence is strongly negatively associated with educational attainment and then examines this relationship in greater depth than is typical. First, I examine variation in the link between health and educational attainment along socioeconomic and racial/ethnic lines. Are the families of adolescents in poorer health better able to mitigate the negative educational consequences of a condition if they are socially and/or economically advantaged? Or do youths in these families suffer an equal or greater disadvantage? Second, I evaluate the role of academic factors—specifically, educational participation, performance, and expectations—that may explain the connection between adolescents’ health and educational attainment. I examine these questions with data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97), with an overall goal of understanding the ways in which health and social status act together to create educational disparities in the early life course.     

Education Gains Attributable to Fertility Decline: Patterns by Gender,Period, and Country in Latin America and Asia

We investigate the heterogeneity across countries and time in the relationship between mother’s fertility and children’s educational attainment—the quantity-quality (Q-Q) trade-off—by using census data from 17 countries in Asia and Latin America, with data from each country spanning multiple census years. For each country-year, we estimate micro-level instrumental variables models predicting secondary school attainment using number of siblings of the child, instrumented by the sex composition of the first two births in the family. We then analyze correlates of Q-Q trade-off patterns across countries. On average, one additional sibling in the family reduces the probability of secondary education by 6 percentage points for girls and 4 percentage points for boys. This Q-Q trade-off is significantly associated with the level of son preference, slightly decreasing over time and with fertility, but it does not significantly differ by educational level of the country.