Effects Of Childhood Conditions Research Articles

PP73 Childhood conditions and social relationships in later life

Background This study investigates the long-term impact of childhood conditions on social relationships in later life. Social relationships predict health and emotional wellbeing across the life course and the long-term effect of childhood on later life health and wellbeing is well established. However, it is not known whether childhood conditions also predict social relationship characteristics in later life. Furthermore, it is important to determine whether any association between childhood and later life social outcomes is indirect (operating through the well-established relationship between childhood and adult socio-economic status and health) or direct. Data Data are from two waves of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), a nationally representative data on older Europeans. We use retrospectively reported childhood data from SHARELIFE and social relationship information (social network size, emotional closeness, social activities and satisfaction with activities undertaken) from Wave 4. We also include all respondents who are present in both waves (n = 19,000). Methods In step one; we use regression analysis to determine the extent to which childhood conditions (childhood SES, cognition, and parental separation and childhood health) predict each social relationship characteristic. We include a set of country fixed effects, which accounted for any factors which were common to respondents in that particular country, and control for an additional set of demographic factors. In step two, we determine how the total effect (coefficient sum) of the childhood variables is attenuated by adult circumstances, by adding control variables for adult characteristics (SES, behaviour and health) to the model in a stepwise manner. In this way, we investigate the potential mechanisms through which the effect of childhood conditions may operate. Results Results illustrated that the long-run effects of different childhood conditions were not uniform. We observed a direct relationship between childhood health and emotional closeness and between parental separation and emotional closeness. After controlling for endogenous adult characteristics, the effects of childhood SES and cognition in predicting emotional closeness remained significant. In this study, social relationships in later life were partly determined by childhood conditions, and these effects appeared to be largely independent of the established relationship between childhood environment and adult factors (such as socio-economic status and health). These results confirm that there are diverse, direct and indirect pathways linking early life conditions to later outcomes, and understanding the long arm of childhood into later social life requires consideration of each of these.

Live long and prosper? Childhood living conditions, marital status, social class in adulthood and mortality during mid-life: A cohort study

The aim of the present study was to investigate the impact of childhood living conditions, marital status, and social class in adulthood on the risk of mortality during mid-life. Two questions were addressed: Is there an effect of childhood living conditions on mortality risk during mid-life and if so, is the effect mediated or modified by social class and/or marital status in adulthood? A nationally representative, Swedish, level of living survey from 1968 was used as baseline. The study included those aged 25-69 at baseline (n = 4082). Social conditions in childhood and adulthood were assessed using self-reports. These individuals were then followed for 39 years using registry data on mortality. The results showed associations between childhood living conditions, marital status, social class in adulthood and mortality during mid life. Social class and familial conditions during childhood as well as marital status and social class in adulthood all contributed to the risk of mortality during mid-life. Individuals whose father's were manual workers, who grew up in broken homes, who were unmarried, and/or were manual workers in adulthood had an increased risk of mortality during mid life. The effects of childhood conditions were, in part, both mediated and modified by social class in adulthood. The findings of this study suggest that there are structural, social conditions experienced at different stages of the life course that affect the risk of mortality during mid-life.

The effects on stature of poverty, family size, and birth order: British children in the 1930s

This paper examines effects of socio-economic conditions on the standardised heights and body mass index of children in Interwar Britain. It uses the Boyd Orr cohort, a survey of predominantly poor families taken in 1937-9, which provides a unique opportunity to explore the determinants of child health in the era before the welfare state. We examine the trade-off between the quality (in the form of health outcomes) and the number of children in the family at a time when genuine poverty still existed in Britain. Our results provide strong support both for negative birth order effects and negative family size effects on the heights of children. No such effects are found for the body mass index (BMI). We find that household income per capita positively influences the heights of children but, even after accounting for this, the number of children in the family still has a negative effect on height. This latter effect is closely associated with overcrowding and particularly with the degree of cleanliness or hygiene in the household, which conditions exposure to factors predisposing to disease. We also analyse evidence collected retrospectively, which indicates that the effects of childhood conditions on height persisted into adulthood.