Longitudinal and Life Course Studies最新文献

Objective: This study examines the impact of work history on functional limitations in later life among individuals who experienced China's 1978 economic reform.

Methods: Data were drawn from the 2011-18 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) for respondents born between 1935 and 1964. Sequence analysis was used to categorise work histories by type and duration. Random intercept multilevel Tobit models were applied to estimate the effects of work trajectories on functional limitations in later life.

Results: The economic reform facilitated transitions from farming to non-rural work for rural workers, yet hukou-based urban-rural divisions shaped access to pensions, medical insurance and housing benefits. Urban work is associated with lower functional limitations than self-employment for urban hukou holders. Younger migrant workers and rural workers who were mainly engaged in self-employment or urban work have lower levels of functional limitations than those who were mainly engaged in farming or rural work.

Conclusion: Work history was significantly shaped by the urban-rural hukou system. Rural hukou holders had fewer opportunities for non-rural employment, limiting their access to pensions, healthcare and better living conditions. Those engaged in rural work experienced significantly higher functional limitations compared to individuals in other employment types.

The rise in divorce, cohabitation, non-marital childbearing and multi-partner fertility means that today's children are more likely to experience less common or less stable family settings compared to previous generations. This may lead to increasing inequalities across the life course. Unlike most existing studies on family change, we investigate family trajectories in the United Kingdom from children's perspective. We map the family trajectories characterising children's first ten years of life using multi-channel sequence analysis on data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study, jointly capturing the dynamics of maternal partnership histories and paternal co-residence patterns from the children's perspective. Multinomial logistic regression is applied to understand the characteristics associated with experiencing different childhood family trajectories. Children experience six typical family trajectories: continuously married; early separation; continuously cohabiting; later separation; early solo motherhood; and a new father. From birth to age ten, over a quarter of children do not continuously live with their two biological parents. Children with lower-educated mothers, mothers in the youngest or oldest groups, who live in urban areas, and belong to certain ethnic groups (White British, Mixed, Caribbean, Black African) tend to experience less common or less stable trajectories. Our elucidation of factors associated with more/less stable childhood family pathways can inform policy decision-making around support for families to mitigate growing short- and long-term inequalities giving rise to children's diverging destinies.

While existing research documents heterogeneous later life course employment/retirement pathways, we know little about whether the multiple short-term shifts ('churn') documented among young (20-something) adults around transitions into the labour force also characterise the experiences of significant numbers of adults in their 50s, 60s and early 70s around the transitions out of the workforce. We draw on an intersectional, gendered life course theoretical framing and exploit 16-month panel components of the US Current Population Survey from 1998 through 2018 to examine the incidence and timing of churn in the later work course, and whether it differs at the intersections of gender and age/life stage, together with other social locations. Our longitudinal study reveals, first, that while women and men in later adulthood report similar levels of churn (24 per cent and 23 per cent, respectively) its timing is gendered, with women more apt to encounter churn in their 50s, while at ages 67-74 men's churn rates outstrip women's. Second, churn is heterogeneous, differing greatly by and within gender and age/life stage in intersection with race/ethnicity, health, education and baseline employment status. Third, churn appears to be more constraint-driven during ages 50-59 and more voluntary during ages 60-74. Our findings reveal variable volatility in the later work course, underscoring the importance of examining gender and other structural locations influencing the likelihood and timing of multiple employment shifts by older US adults at different ages/life stages.

Since the 1978 market transition, employment opportunities for rural residents in China have become significantly more diverse, calling for a re-evaluation of how holistic work trajectories influence mental health in later life. Using retrospective life course data from the Chinese Health and Retirement Longitudinal Survey (CHARLS), we focused on the longitudinal association between work trajectories and depressive symptoms among rural adults aged over 55. Sequence analysis identified seven distinct work trajectory clusters among rural men and five among rural women; these ranged from self-employed farmers to employees in governmental/public sectors, state-owned enterprises (SOEs), agricultural entrepreneurs and non-agricultural self-employment. Men exhibited a higher level of employment diversity than women. In later life, men employed in governmental sectors and women in non-agricultural self-employment consistently showed a lower risk of depressive symptoms compared to self-employed farmers, which supports the hypothesis of cumulative (dis)advantage. This research highlights the importance of work trajectories in understanding mental health disparities. The findings reinforce the assertion that lifelong occupation as a self-employed farmer is associated with long-term disadvantages in the context of rapid market expansion, which underscores the need for targeted policy interventions.

To address the persistent decline in birth rates, this study investigates how parenting time and its gender-based disparities affect fertility intentions in China. Using data from the 2020 China Family Panel Studies, we conducted an empirical analysis to examine the relationship between the differences in parenting time and fertility intentions from the perspective of gender differences, and identified the possible mechanisms. Our findings reveal: (1) longer parenting time reduces fertility intention; (2) larger disparities in parenting time between spouses significantly inhibit fertility intention, especially for women; (3) this effect is partially mediated through weakening the perceived importance of the family for both spouses, deteriorating their emotional well-being and weakening their motivation to achieve economic reciprocity through children; (4) heterogeneity analyses show that the inhibitory effect is strongest in western regions. These results are robust across model specifications, gender-based subsamples and interaction terms. The study offers empirical evidence to inform gender-equal family policies and parental leave reform in low-fertility contexts.

Professor John Bynner was a pioneer of social research using comparative longitudinal data, with a fine-tuned gift for predicting what many of the key issues were going to be in longitudinal and life course research and related policy spheres. His legacy is one of a truly remarkable researcher and scholar, but also a great colleague and friend to many. John was also the founding father of the Society for Longitudinal and Lifecourse Studies (SLLS) and this journal. Longitudinal and Life Course Studies (LLCS) published an obituary and tribute to John in 2024 (Schoon, 2024). This manuscript relates to a symposium that took place on 26 September 2024, in a special session organised as part of the annual meeting of the SLLS in Essex, UK. Professor Walter Heinz, a long-time friend and colleague of John's, convened the symposium. Professor Heinz won the SLLS John Bynner Distinguished Scholar Award in 2023, with winners invited to present a keynote at the following year's annual meeting. Instead of a keynote, Professor Heinz chose to organise a symposium that would pay tribute to his dear friend, who sadly passed in August 2023. As Professor Heinz could not attend the meeting in person, SLLS president Professor Dario Spini chaired the symposium. Four guest speakers were invited to highlight the key role John played in longitudinal and life course studies. Professors Paul Clarke (on behalf of Professor David Blane who could not attend), Amanda Sacker, Jeylan Mortimer and Dale Dannefer (in collaboration with Professor Ingrid Schoon, who could not attend) served as the speakers. The transcript was collated and edited by Dr Tony Robertson. The transcript, and in turn manuscript, were edited to remove extraneous material and to smooth or clarify text, including linking to slides used by the presenters and including tables. All speakers have seen the full transcript and agree with the final version of the manuscript.

Background: While adherence to a low-sodium diet and cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) are important in heart failure (HF) management, their effects on health-related quality of life (HRQoL) remain unclear. This study evaluated the influence of CRF, sodium intake adherence and demographic and clinical variables on HRQoL, cardiovascular mortality and hospitalisation in individuals with HF.

Methods: A longitudinal study assessed outpatients at baseline (T0) and every six months (T1, T2) through telemonitoring. Data were analysed using R. Spearman's correlation examined associations between demographic/clinical variables, CRF, sodium intake, hospitalisation and mortality. Variables with significant correlations were included in stepwise multiple regression. Repeated measures ANOVA was used to assess changes over time in HRQoL.

Results: A total of 81 patients were included at T0, 74 at T1 and 72 at T2. Sodium intake adherence remained below the good adherence cutoff (≥40 points) across all timepoints. Mean CRF was 3 metabolic equivalents (METs). No significant change in sodium intake or CRF was observed over time. Actively working individuals had a 16.5-fold higher risk of mortality, even after adjusting for sex and age, possibly due to limited healthcare access, occupational stress, comorbidities and treatment nonadherence. The HRQoL physical domain was significantly associated with demographic, clinical and functional factors, including gender, obesity, NYHA class, HF severity and CRF (p<0.01).

Conclusion: CRF, gender, obesity, New York Heart Association class and HF severity predicted HRQoL's physical domain. Being actively employed was strongly associated with mortality risk. Despite consistently low adherence to sodium intake recommendations, no association was found with health-related quality of life.

Empirical evidence has shown positive associations between birth weight and various outcomes, including health, educational attainment, earnings and cognitive development. However, most studies focus on later-life outcomes and rely on cross-sectional or sibling study designs, which have limited ability to control for unobserved variables that influence both birth weight and the outcomes of interest. This research aims to provide new empirical evidence on the effects of birth weight on cognitive and non-cognitive development, using data from singleton and twin births of children aged six months to seven years, based on a survey conducted in Chile. Results from Ordinary Least Squares models across families indicate positive associations between birth weight and developmental outcomes. However, first-difference models within twin pairs - which account for unobserved genetic and environmental factors - suggest that birth weight affects only language skills among the four developmental domains studied, and motor skills when focusing on the youngest children in the sample. The study also finds some evidence that birth weight may influence developmental outcomes indirectly through later measures of physical development. These findings should be interpreted as lower-bound estimates, as recent evidence suggests that twin studies tend to underestimate the true effects of birth weight.