Trajectories Of Disadvantage Research Articles

The Role of Adverse Childhood Experiences in the Trajectories to Adulthood of Chinese Youth: A Retrospective Study

This study uses data from a retrospective survey of the life history of participants from five cohorts born between 1930 and 1979, to analyze the role of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). We found that ACEs have significant effects on the transition of young Chinese people into adulthood. Young people who have experienced more ACEs were more likely to transition to adulthood earlier, and accelerate their acceptance of adult social roles, and young adults with a high incidence of ACEs also have an increasing probability of falling into the disadvantaged or least successful trajectory to adulthood. More ACEs are associated with a decreased probability of being classified into the delayed and advantaged trajectories into adulthood characterized by high education and stable work, and an increased probability of being classified into the early and disadvantaged trajectories into adulthood characterized by unemployment, early marriage, and more children.

Allostatic Load and Exposure Histories of Disadvantage

The stress pathway posits that those in disadvantaged circumstances are exposed to a higher degree of stressful experiences over time resulting in an accumulated biological burden which subsequently relates to poorer health. Trajectories of disadvantage, in the form of neighbourhood deprivation and structural social capital, are evaluated in their relation to allostatic load representing the cumulative “wear and tear” of chronic stress. This paper uses data from the British Household Panel Survey and Understanding Society in a latent class growth analysis. We identify groups of exposure trajectories over time using these classes to predict allostatic load at the final wave. The results show that persistent exposure to higher deprivation is related to worse allostatic load. High structural social capital over time relates to lower allostatic load, in line with a stress buffering effect, though this relationship is not robust to controlling for individual sociodemographic characteristics. By demonstrating a gradient in allostatic load by histories of deprivation, this analysis supports a biological embedding of disadvantage through chronic exposure to stressful environments as an explanation for social health inequalities.

Material Disadvantage and Positive Subjective Health of Older Homeless and Older Irish Travelers

Focusing on older Irish Travellers and older homeless people (OTOH) as two marginalised sub-sections of the older population, this paper investigates life-course and structural forms of material disadvantage, and its implications for positive health and accessing community care in older age. With growing interest in strengthening home care structures for older people, it is critical to interrogate the relevance of these structures for those who experience environmental uncertainty in later life, and possess significant trajectories of disadvantage. The analysis draws on 50 life-course interviews with OTOH aged between 50-72 years. The findings illustrate significant life-course experiences of material and multi-faceted forms of disadvantage, including stigma and discrimination, with implications across health and social lives. Housing deprivation was a multi-factorial player, causing certain physical illnesses, hindering some health treatments, and contributing to precarious conditions and sense of self worth. Findings are discussed in relation to flexible models of home care delivery.

MOBILITY TRAJECTORIES, HEALTHCARE SATISFACTION, AND PERCEIVED DISABILITY DISCRIMINATION AMONG OLDER ADULTS

Although functional mobility limitations are associated with increased healthcare needs in later life, little research explores how older adults with varying functional mobility trajectories experience healthcare quality. To this end, we explore the effects of functional mobility trajectories on differences in healthcare treatment satisfaction, perceived disability discrimination in healthcare settings, and perceived everyday disability discrimination. We analyzed 9 waves of the Health and Retirement Study (n=29,284, 1998-2014, ages 50-84). First, we estimate age-specific group-based trajectories of functional mobility across age using finite mixture models. Second, we use multinomial logistic regression to identify sociodemographic factors that place individuals at elevated risk of membership in each group. Third, we explore how membership in one disability trajectory group over another affects healthcare satisfaction, perceptions of everyday discrimination in the context of healthcare treatment settings, and perceived discrimination in everyday life. Regression models include clustered standard errors to account for heteroscedasticity across repeated observations of individuals over time. We identify six group-based trajectories of functional mobility limitation among aging Americans. Black, female, and less-educated Americans are at higher risk of membership in disadvantaged trajectories, characterized by more rapidly increasing counts of functional mobility limitations, than their counterparts. Disadvantaged functional limitation trajectories are associated with lower levels of healthcare satisfaction, higher levels of perceived physical disability discrimination in healthcare treatment settings, and higher levels of perceived physical discrimination in other contexts of everyday life. The present study advances our knowledge of how older adults experience healthcare settings and discrimination across functional mobility status trajectories.

From care to education and work? Education and employment trajectories in early adulthood by children in out-of-home care

BackgroundTemporal dynamics during the early adulthood transition among children in out-of-home care is a neglected research area, leaving the possibility of coping with childhood adversity over time a poorly understood topic. ObjectiveTo explore early adulthood education and employment trajectories among young adults who experienced out-of-home care during childhood and to examine how various care history factors predict these trajectories. ParticipantsWe use longitudinal birth cohort data comprising individual-level information from national registers of all children born in Finland in 1987 (N = 59,476, of whom 1893 were in care). Setting and methodsWe use trajectory clustering from a previous study on the 1987 birth cohort to compare trajectories between children in care and a propensity score–matched group of peers never in care. We investigated the association between care history factors and trajectories with multinomial logistic regression modeling. ResultsCompared with the matched peer group, children in care were less likely to enter trajectories characterized by education and employment (38%) and more likely to enter trajectories involving early parenthood (14%) or long periods of fragmented social assistance benefit receipt and unemployment (21%). Those on early parenthood trajectories were almost exclusively women, whereas those receiving social assistance benefits and experiencing unemployment for lengthy periods were mostly men. Entering disadvantaged trajectories was associated with, inter alia, placement as an adolescent, residential care, and aging out of care. ConclusionThe study demonstrates the relevance of examining longitudinal trajectories in children in care’s early adulthood. Many young adults with care experience need support in education and employment beyond young adult age.

Physical education, school sport and looked-after-children: health, wellbeing and educational engagement

ABSTRACT In recent years, there has been unprecedented awareness within policy and research of the disadvantageous trajectories that looked-after children and young people (LACYP) often face; particularly in relation to their education, health and wellbeing. Despite the perceived capacity of sport, physical activity and physical education to contribute to young people’s positive development, relatively few studies have considered the place of such activities in the lives of LACYP or the impact that being looked-after can have on individuals’ engagements with them. Presenting findings from a small-scale, qualitative study of LACYP in England, this paper explores the ways in which physical education and school sport (PESS) might be contextualised against broader life circumstances and experiences of care. Placing the personalised accounts of a group of LACYP alongside those of physical education (PE) teachers and local authority professionals, the paper examines varied perspectives and experiences of PESS and its relevance to LACYP. In particular, it highlights the extent to which the vulnerabilities of LACYP status may impact young peoples’ perceptions of health, wellbeing and educational engagement in this field. The paper concludes by suggesting that whilst PESS may be seen to present a number of social, emotional and health benefits for LACYP, when located against a backdrop of broader life-course vulnerability, such benefits may be de-prioritised by those concerned.

Destination as a process: Sibling similarity in early socioeconomic trajectories.

This paper proposes a process-oriented life course perspective on intergenerational mobility by comparing the early socioeconomic trajectories of siblings to those of unrelated persons. Based on rich Finnish register data (N = 21,744), the findings show that social origin affects not only final outcomes at given points in the life course but also longitudinal socioeconomic trajectories from ages 17-35 in early adulthood. We contribute to previous literature in three ways. First, we show that there is a pronounced similarity in the early socioeconomic trajectories of siblings. This similarity is stronger for same-sex siblings and stronger for brothers than for sisters. Second, we show that sibling similarity in full trajectories cannot be reduced to similarity in outcomes, i.e., siblings are not only more similar in the final outcomes that they obtain but also in the pathways that lead them to these outcomes. Third, our findings support that sibling similarity follows a U-shaped pattern by social class, i.e., similarity is especially strong in disadvantaged trajectories, weak among middle-class young adults, and increases again within the most advantaged trajectories. We conclude that measures of social mobility that concentrate on final outcomes are at risk of underestimating the association between social origin and destination because social inequalities are formed across the life course, not just at the end of specific life phases.

More than a snapshot in time: pathways of disadvantage over childhood.

Disadvantage rarely manifests as a single event, but rather is the enduring context in which a child's development unfolds. We aimed to characterize patterns of stability and change in multiple aspects of disadvantage over the childhood period, in order to inform more precise and nuanced policy development. Participants were from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children birth cohort (n = 5107). Four lenses of disadvantage (sociodemographic, geographic environment, health conditions and risk factors), and a composite of these representing average exposure across all lenses, were assessed longitudinally from 0 to 9 years of age. Trajectory models identified groups of children with similar patterns of disadvantage over time for each of these lenses and for composite disadvantage. Concurrent validity of these trajectory groups was examined through associations with academic performance at 10-11 years. We found four distinct trajectories of children's exposure to composite disadvantage, which showed high levels of stability over time. In regard to the individual lenses of disadvantage, three exhibited notable change over time (the sociodemographic lens was the exception). Over a third of children (36.3%) were exposed to the 'most disadvantaged' trajectory in at least one lens. Trajectories of disadvantage were associated with academic performance, providing evidence of concurrent validity. Children's overall level of composite disadvantage was stable over time, whereas geographic environments, health conditions and risk factors changed over time for some children. Measuring disadvantage as uni-dimensional, at a single time point, is likely to understate the true extent and persistence of disadvantage.

The impact of multidimensional disadvantage over childhood on developmental outcomes in Australia.

Understanding the relationship between different aspects of disadvantage over time and domains of child development will facilitate the formulation of more precise policy responses. We examined the association between exposure to aspects of disadvantage over the childhood period (from 0-9 years) and child development at 10-11 years. We used data from the nationally representative birth cohort of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (n = 4979). Generalized linear models with log-Poisson link were used to estimate the association between previously derived disadvantage trajectories (in each of four lenses of sociodemographic, geographic environments, health conditions and risk factors, and a composite of these) and risk of poor child developmental outcomes. Population-attributable fractions were calculated to quantify the potential benefit of providing all children with optimal conditions for each developmental outcome. Trajectories of disadvantage were associated with developmental outcomes: children in the most disadvantaged composite trajectory had seven times higher risk of poor outcomes on two or more developmental domains, compared with those most advantaged. Trajectories of disadvantage in different lenses were varyingly associated with the child development domains of socio-emotional adjustment, physical functioning and learning competencies. Exposure to the most advantaged trajectory across all lenses could reduce poor developmental outcomes by as much as 70%. Exposure to disadvantage over time is associated with adverse child development outcomes. Developmental outcomes varied with the aspects of disadvantage experienced, highlighting potential targets for more precise policy responses. The findings provide evidence to stimulate advocacy and action to reduce child inequities.

Accumulating (Dis)advantage: Do Social Bonds Mediate the Relationship Between Multiple Childhood Adversities and Persistent Offending?

The current study examines how cumulative adversity in childhood is related to both frequency of offending and criminal career length in adulthood. Specifically we examine (1) whether multiple adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) predict criminal career length and frequency of offending, and (2) if the formation of adult bonds mediates the relationship between adversity in childhood with persistent and chronic offending in adulthood. Analyses use data on a population of several hundred individuals who have committed numerous violent offenses and have criminal careers of up to 56 years in length (N = 401). Path analysis was used to estimate the total, indirect, and direct effects of the accumulation of multiple adversities on two key dimensions of a criminal career: career length and frequency of offending. Results indicate the pathway to frequent offending differs from the pathway to criminal career length. Prosocial bonds did not mediate the relationship between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and criminal career length; instead, there was a significant direct effect of ACEs on career length. On the other hand, ACEs were negatively and indirectly related to frequency of offending through the particular bond of employment. Results suggest that early years are important for initiating trajectories of disadvantage; at the same time our results also demonstrate a role for interventions across the life course. Early interventions that attempt to diminish the impact of negative beginnings as well as interventions that facilitate efforts to build social capital during adulthood may have the ability to redirect trajectories.

The impact of parental employment trajectories on the children’s early adulthood education and employment trajectories in the Finnish birth cohort 1987

The Finnish Birth Cohort 1987 grew up during the recession that hit Finland in the early 1990s, which had an impact on their parents’ activity in the labour market. In this paper we use Finnish register data to build employment and education sequences for all young people born in Finland in 1987 for the period 2005–2012 and employment sequences for all their parents for the entire length of their children’s lives from 1987 until 2012. The sequences were analysed and clustered, and four multinomial logistic regression models were used to find how parents’ trajectories connect to their children’s early adulthood trajectories. Most parents had been on a stable employment trajectory, but we found mothers and fathers who were absent from the labour market during the recession of the 1990s and after it – and some parents never entirely returned to work during this 1987–2012 follow-up. Likewise, most children were either on an employment or education trajectory, but we found groups of children who were on very early child care trajectories, unemployment trajectories, or on a trajectory with no records in the Finnish registers, which in the Finnish context implies that those young people are not employed, not in education and not receiving any of the various benefits. Disadvantageous trajectories were mostly very lasting. We found strong connections between parents’ disadvantages in the labour market and children’s disadvantageous early adulthood trajectories, even when adjusting for strong background variables. The strongest connections arise from parents’ long absences from the labour market.

Childhood Social Disadvantage and Pubertal Timing: A National Birth Cohort From Australia

Early pubertal timing is linked with a range of adverse health outcomes later. Given recent trends of earlier pubertal maturation, there is growing interest in the factors influencing pubertal timing. Socioeconomic disadvantage has been previously linked with reproductive strategies later in life. In this study, we aim to determine the association between cumulative social disadvantages in early life and early puberty in a population-based birth cohort. Data are from the B (baby) cohort of The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children. Children (n = 5107) were aged 0 to 1 years when recruited in 2004 and 10 to 11 years (n = 3764) at Wave 6 in 2015. Household socioeconomic position (SEP) and neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage were collected at all 6 waves. Trajectories of disadvantage were identified through latent class models. Early puberty at Wave 6 was assessed from parental reports using an adaptation of the Pubertal Development Scale. Cumulative exposure to extremely unfavorable household SEP in boys independently predicted a fourfold increase (odds ratio = 4.22, 95% confidence interval 2.27-7.86) in the rate of early puberty. In girls, the increase was twofold (odds ratio = 1.96, 95% confidence interval 1.08-3.56). We found no effect from neighborhood disadvantage once family SEP was taken into account. Cumulative exposure to household socioeconomic disadvantage in early life predicts earlier pubertal timing in both boys and girls. This may represent 1 mechanism underpinning associations between early life disadvantage and poor health in later life.

Childhood Adversity and Trajectories of Disadvantage Through Adulthood: Findings from the Stockholm Birth Cohort Study

Children whose parents experience adverse social, economic, or health-related living conditions are more likely to face similar types of disadvantage in their adult life. However, a limitation of many earlier studies is that they do not account for the multidimensionality of the concept of living conditions, and that the child generation’s life courses are targeted as static and independent from the societal context in which they are imbedded. The current investigation addressed these aspects by focusing on the complexity, duration, and timing of disadvantage with regard to how adverse circumstances in the family of origin are associated with trajectories of social, economic, and health-related living conditions across adulthood. We also examined the role of educational attainment for these associations. Analyses were based a Swedish cohort born in 1953 (n = 14,294). We first conducted sequence analysis, followed by hierarchical cluster analysis, to generate ‘outcome profiles’, i.e. trajectories of adult disadvantage. Second, several indicators of adverse circumstances in childhood were analysed by means of multinominal regression analysis, showing the odds of ending up in the different trajectories. The results indicated that individuals who grew up under adverse conditions were more likely to experience disadvantaged social, economic, and health-related trajectories. This was particularly the case for trajectories characterised by a high degree of complexity, i.e. coexisting disadvantages, and—among men only—by a longer duration of disadvantage. Educational attainment was identified as a powerful mediator, suggesting that efforts to increase equal educational opportunity may be a way of reducing the intergenerational transmission of disadvantage.

Trajectories of economic, work- and health-related disadvantage and subsequent mortality risk: Findings from the 1953 Stockholm Birth Cohort

Abstract To experience difficulties such as poverty, joblessness, or mental disease, may not only impair one’s current life situation but could also involve increased later-life mortality risks. Although various types of disadvantage often are interrelated, little attention has been paid to the multifaceted interplay between disadvantages and subsequent mortality. We extended the current research by (1) identifying life-course trajectories of economic, work- and health-related disadvantage, and (2) assessing relative mortality risks for different life-course trajectories. The disadvantages included were unemployment, social assistance recipiency, and severe mental illness in 1992–1999, whereas the follow-up of all-cause mortality covered the years 2000–2008. Results based on the Stockholm Birth Cohort study of individuals born 1953, utilizing (1) sequence and (2) survival analyses, revealed seven life-course trajectories of disadvantage, some of which were related to elevated mortality risks. In particular, life courses characterized by persistent and coexisting disadvantages during the 1990s were associated with comparably higher mortality in the 2000s. Conversely, temporary disadvantage, even if characterized by high intensity and/or combined with other difficulties, was not associated with increased mortality risks. To pay simultaneous attention to different types of disadvantages, as well as the routes in and out of them, is thus central for understanding inequalities in mortality.

Angus Deaton , The Great Escape : Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality , Princeton (N. J.), Princeton University Press, 2013, XV-360 p.

James J. heCKmAn, Giving Kids a Fair Chance, Cambridge, Ma., The MIT Press, Boston Review Books, 2013, 137 p.Over the last decade, Nobel Prize-winning economist James Heckman has produced a fundamental set of writings on the economics of early childhood. Heckman argues that many of the economic, social and health inequalities currently seen in the US are rooted in the early childhood period and that the strong intergenerational transmission of advantage and disadvantage found in the country today means that birth is becoming fate (p. 3). Early childhood, then, is precisely the period in which to impact on disadvantaged trajectories, as many cognitive and socio-emotional skills key to future educational and economic success are being developed during this period and are therefore at their most malleable. In the first section of the book, Heckman puts forward his argument on the need for intervention in early childhood to break the vicious circle of disadvantage that is polarizing the US population. Ten experts from a number of different fields ranging from economics to genetics to sociology then respond to his main argument, giving the book an interdisciplinary perspective on a highly sensitive political subject on which there is not always consensus across disciplines. The last word is Heckman's; in the closing section of the book he briefly replies to these authors.The book is an excellent introduction to Heckman's thinking on early childhood. The major thrust of his argument is summarized in the first section: social policy can fill the growing gap between rich and poor and should integrate three major research findings: 1) skills (such as motivation, attention and self-control) are just as important as cognitive skills and similarly predict social outcomes; 2) both cognitive and non-cognitive skills are developed very early in life, and once disparities in these skills appear they are hard to remedy; and 3) contrary to the claims of genetic determinism, intervention in early life can produce positive, long-lasting results. Those positive outcomes not only benefit individuals who participate in early childhood programs but have wider, spillover effects on children's families and communities, in that they foster a more skilled workforce, reduce the need for welfare and social services, decrease the risk of teenage pregnancy, family breakdown, etc.Much of Heckman's work is a contribution on this last point, particularly his studies of the Perry Preschool Project, extensively quoted in the book. The Perry Project was an intensive pre-school program conducted with 58 low-income African American children in Ypsilanti, Michigan, from 1962 to 1967. It consisted of a two-and-a-half hour daily schoolroom session for the children and one 90-minute weekly home visit from the teacher with the children's parents. This was continued for two years. The project children and a control group were followed to age 40. According to Heckman, the Perry Preschool Project consistently shows positive outcomes for program children: while the initial IQ increase receded in the 4 years following intervention, the positive effects on non-cognitive skills and social outcomes persisted: participating children achieved higher educational qualifications, earned higher wages in adulthood, and were less likely to be on welfare or in prison. …

Overeducation in the Early Career of Secondary Education Graduates

Based on monthly observations of their employment and overeducation status in the first seven years after leaving education, we use optimal matching sequence analysis to construct a typology of entry patterns of Flemish secondary education graduates. We find that for a significant number of young people, overeducation constitutes a persistent problem, affecting about half of the sample for nearly the full observation period. Investigating the risk factors shows factors, such as, having lower human capital endowments or facing job search constraints enhancing the risk of following disadvantageous trajectories. A lower reservation wage seems to make being persistently overeducated more likely. Yet, starting as ‘overeducated’ does not necessarily lead to being stuck as overeducated in the rest of the career. About 7 per cent of our sample succeeds in entering an adequate position even after being overeducated for a relatively long period.

Family income trajectory during childhood is associated with adiposity in adolescence: a latent class growth analysis

BackgroundChildhood socioeconomic disadvantage has been linked with obesity in cross-sectional research, although less is known about how changes in socioeconomic status influence the development of obesity. Researchers have hypothesized that upward socioeconomic mobility may attenuate the health effects of earlier socioeconomic disadvantage; while downward socioeconomic mobility might have a negative influence on health despite relative socioeconomic advantages at earlier stages. The purpose of the current study was to characterize trajectories of family income during childhood, and to evaluate the influence of these trajectories on adiposity at age 15.MethodsData were collected as part of the Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD) between 1991 and 2007 at 10 sites across the United States. A latent class growth analysis (LCGA) was conducted to identify trajectories of family income from birth to 15 years of age. Analyses of covariance (ANCOVAs) were conducted to determine whether measures of adiposity differed by trajectory, while controlling for relevant covariates.ResultsThe LCGA supported a 5-class trajectory model, which included two stable, one downward, and two upward trajectories. ANCOVAs indicated that BMI percentile, waist circumference, and skinfold thicknesses at age 15 differed significantly by trajectory, such that those who experienced downward mobility or stable low income had greater adiposity relative to the more advantaged trajectories. Conversely, upwardly mobile children and those with consistently adequate incomes had similar and more positive outcomes relative to the most disadvantaged trajectories.ConclusionsFindings suggest that promoting upward socioeconomic mobility among disadvantaged families may have a positive impact on obesity-related outcomes in adolescence.

Preterm infants of educated mothers have better outcome

To determine the developmental trajectories of very-low-birthweight (VLBW) infants during the first 2 years of life, and investigate the most contributory predictors of diverse trajectories. This prospective cohort study enrolled 887 VLBW infants from January 1999 to December 2002 with regular follow-up at corrected age of 6, 12, 18 and 24 months. Sociodemographic and medical data were collected, and the outcome measures consisted of neurological assessment and the Bayley Scales of Infant Development-II. Five trajectories of cognitive development based on the mental developmental indices from the age of 6 to 24 months were determined, including average-stable (group A, 20.1%), average-decline to borderline delay (group B, 34%), borderline delay-catch-up to average (group C, 20.2%), borderline delay-decline to significant delay (group D, 17.2%) and significant delay-stable (group E, 8.5%). Using group A as the reference category, we determined 6-month neurological status and maternal education as the most significant predictors for various trajectories (p < 0.01). Infants with transient or definite neurological abnormality and/or low maternal education had higher odds of displaying the disadvantageous trajectories (group B, D and E; odds ratios, 1.79-46.4). VLBW infants with neurological abnormalities and/or low maternal education had high risk of developmental decline and might benefit from early intervention.