Longitudinal and Life Course Studies最新文献

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.

Purpose: This study investigates the dynamic interaction between career aspirations and family planning decisions among women in Lagos State, Nigeria. It explores how societal norms, personal ambitions and practical considerations influence these choices, using the Work-Family Conflict Theory as a guiding framework.

Method: Employing a qualitative research approach, a diverse group of 30 women in their reproductive years were selected from Lagos Island Maternity Hospital (LIMH) and Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) using a combination of purposive and snowball sampling techniques. Thematic content analysis was used to analyse their perspectives.

Results: The findings reveal that women with ambitious career goals often delayed childbearing to avoid career interruptions, reflecting a shift towards viewing career success as compatible with family life. However, health considerations sometimes supersede career ambitions, indicating a complex interplay between work, health and family planning. Contextual factors such as societal norms and workplace support systems also play a role in shaping family planning decisions. Women in self-employment experience greater flexibility in managing both careers and families, whereas those in traditional employment face more rigid constraints. Supportive workplace policies, particularly maternity leave provisions, emerge as critical in facilitating family planning decisions. Self-employed women emphasise the autonomy they gain in managing family planning, while those in structured employment often navigate stricter timelines.

Conclusion: There is a need to align family planning policies with women's career goals, and future research should explore these dynamics in diverse settings.

Background: The U-shaped relationship between age and life satisfaction has been well documented in developed contexts, such as the Western developed world and urban China, but lifespan changes in life satisfaction in less developed contexts, such as rural China, remain underexplored.

Data and method: Applying multilevel growth curve models to a longitudinal dataset (2006, 2009 and 2014 waves) of 1,959 rural Chinese, the overall pattern of life satisfaction across individuals of different ages at baseline, as well as changes in life satisfaction as individuals age, are investigated.

Results: Results show that in rural China, the overall pattern of life satisfaction across different ages at baseline resembles a J-shape, with the lowest point occurring at a much earlier age (21), compared to midlife, as observed in Western societies and urban China. In terms of longitudinal changes, individuals aged 18 to 45 at baseline experience a deterioration in life satisfaction over time, with younger individuals experiencing a faster decline, while for those aged 46 and above at baseline, life satisfaction shows an increase over time, with older individuals experiencing more improvements over the eight-year interval.

Conclusions: In rural China, young adults experience the lowest level of life satisfaction at baseline. Longitudinally, their life satisfaction further declines the most over the next eight years. Therefore, more targeted policies and support systems should be developed to improve the life satisfaction for young adults in rural China, not only for the present but also over the long term, ultimately contributing to the improvement of societal wellbeing in rural China.

Most research on marriage and well-being only looks at current marital status, which fails to address the impact of the timing and sequence of marital events on well-being. To fill in this gap, we use data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) to investigate the relationship between marital histories over the life course and loneliness and social participation in late life among older adults aged 65 and over across the US and China, and the gender differences therein. We show that marital histories are associated with loneliness and social participation differently across countries. Off-time marital transition is associated with worse socio-emotional well-being than on-time transition, represented by the higher likelihood of loneliness among Chinese widowed prematurely. On-time transition, featured by mid-life divorce in the US, is otherwise linked to less loneliness. We find weak evidence of gendered differences in the US, such that premature widowhood is linked to higher participation in leisure activities than friend visits for US women but not men. Lifelong singlehood, otherwise, is associated with lower odds of attending leisure activities than friend visits for US men but not women. Our findings reveal the associations between marital histories, including the states and transitions, and the socio-emotional well-being of older adults from three interconnected theories: the life course paradigm, the normative transition theory and the 'gender-as-relational' theory. We also highlight the importance of studying holistic marital histories (rather than current marital status) and their socio-psychological consequences over the life course, with particular attention to non-normative marital transitions that standardised measures of marital status tend to overlook.

Longitudinal methodology is a powerful study design that focuses on processes and patterns of change; yet it is rarely deployed in research to understand post-conflict circumstances. This article describes experiences and lessons learned from a longitudinal study of an education intervention programme in a post-conflict setting. It illustrates both challenges and successful mitigation strategies for conducting a longitudinal study in a fragile and demanding research environment. Our study identified both methodological (participant recruitment, attrition, contextual variability, instrument modifications and record-keeping) and contextual (community, environmental, security and civil perturbations) challenges that impact longitudinal studies in post-conflict societies. By describing the challenges and successful strategies employed in this longitudinal research study, the article illustrates how researchers and practitioners can utilise this methodology to capture individual change over time, identify impacts and outcomes, and gain a deeper understanding of social phenomena and individual development in post-conflict societies.