Advances in Life Course Research最新文献

Substantial changes in residential transitions and family formation patterns have been observed in Western societies, but less attention has been paid to the de-standardisation of adulthood pathways in East Asian contexts, where unique social, economic and cultural circumstances may produce diverse trajectories that are less explored in existing theoretical and empirical frameworks. Adopting a life course perspective, this study identifies the multi-trajectories of housing, partnering and childbearing across adulthood in Taiwan, a setting marked by high housing costs and low fertility rates. Data from the Taiwanese Panel Study of Family Dynamics 2000–2020 (N = 6,931) were used for group-based trajectory modelling, and mixed-effects multinomial regression was employed to examine the likelihood of group membership given early-life resources and social origin. Six common housing–partnering–childbearing trajectories were identified. The most prevalent living arrangement was living in parental homes (50.7%), followed by rental homes (25%), self-owned homes (15.5%) and dorms or other (8.8%). Union formation generally precedes childbearing, whereas housing transitions may occur at various time points. Young adults’ home-leaving and homeownership access appear to be closely related to their parental backgrounds, such as their parents’ educational attainment and occupational status. Overall, the findings are consistent with the de-standardisation of pathways to adulthood, demonstrating the diversity in adult trajectories and the lack of a single dominant pattern.

Do early life traumas condition the psychological consequences of pandemic stressors? Using national data from the Crime, Health, and Politics Survey (May-June 2021), we examine whether early life traumas buffer or amplify the impact of cumulative pandemic stressors (CPS) on anger, an understudied measure of emotional distress. We examine two competing perspectives. The trauma amplification perspective posits that people who experience early life traumas are especially vulnerable to subsequent stressors, while the trauma resiliency perspective suggests the opposite, that people who experience traumas in early life are less vulnerable to subsequent stressors. The trauma resiliency perspective was partially supported by our analyses. Although early life traumas abated the impact of three or more pandemic stressors on anger, we failed to observe any attenuation at lower levels of pandemic stress exposure. We extend previous research by recasting the common stress proliferation model as a stress modification model and by focusing on feelings of anger. Findings are discussed in the context of social stress, mental health, and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Building on Georg Simmel’s concept of “form”, the article presents a relationship related structural concept of social relationships that specifically accounts for opportunities and constraints resulting from the fact that relationships are solidified patterns of interaction that, once established, can develop a power of their own (inertia, momentum) that cannot easily be influenced by the involved actors. In this “relationship-related structural approach”, social relationships or “forms” can be understood as specific constellations of “basic structural properties”, i.e. specifications of various aspects of quantity, of time, of space, of similarity, and including also a certain degree of freedom to enter or quit a relationship, knowledge about one another, and types and degree of institutionalization. The specification of these structural properties impacts the functional capacity of relationships, as well as the dynamics of both relationships and networks, especially the ways in which relationships are formed, maintained, or lost. Referring to various life course transitions from different phases of the life course, it is demonstrated how this approach helps to better understand the dynamics of social relationships and networks and the impact of life events on personal relationships across the life course. Finally, implications of this novel perspective for life course and network research are discussed.

A key question in the ongoing drug policy debate is whether legalising cannabis leads to an increase in cannabis use. In Europe although no country has yet moved to legalisation, many have decriminalised personal possession. However, some jurisdictions are still discussing increased sanctions or have further strengthened penalties for the possession of illicit substances in order to deter widespread cannabis use. This is the case in Italy, where a law introduced in 2006 and repealed in 2014 de facto criminalised personal drug possession, and a potential increase in penalties is currently being debated as a policy option. Despite the intense public debate surrounding the legal status of cannabis, limited empirical research has been conducted in Europe to assess the population-level effects of drug policy reforms, mainly due to data availability constraints. In this study, we analyse the effect of criminalisation on the age of onset of cannabis use using an unique dataset that combines seven waves (2001–2017) of the nationally representative Italian Population Survey on Alcohol and other Drugs with relevant socio-economic data. The final dataset comprises 77,650 observations. Leveraging the rare opportunity to examine the effects of a policy that remained in force for a limited period, our empirical investigation employs a Complementary Log-Log model to analyse the starting rate, that is, the transition rate from non-use to use. To do so, we use self-reported data on the age of first cannabis use. Our results suggest that the implementation of stricter punishments has a significant effect in reducing the likelihood of early cannabis use initiation. The observed impact of criminalisation is limited in younger ages and diminished as adulthood approaches. This paper also discusses other considerations related to the social costs of criminalisation, which should also be taken into account in the ongoing policy debate.

Much of the literature on fertility intentions has shown that they are broadly predictive of fertility behaviour. Fertility intentions tend to change over a person’s life. How religiosity affects these changes over time has rarely been the subject of investigation. In this paper, we focus on whether and how religiosity affects trajectories of lifetime fertility intentions. Specifically, we examine whether highly religious people start with higher fertility intentions and are more likely to sustain them during their life course compared to their less religious counterparts. We apply random and fixed effects growth curve models to data from the German family panel pairfam, using a sample of 6214 women and 5802 men aged 14–46. We find that religiosity mainly contributes to explain the starting level at teenage years but not the trajectories of lifetime fertility intentions as people get older. Highly religious people start with higher intentions than less religious people. However, similarly to less religious people they experience a decline in their fertility intentions with age. This study demonstrates that religiosity is an important variable in research on fertility intentions but with changing relevance over the life course.

This article introduces the concept of “unlinked lives” and illustrates its significance for scholarship on the life course. There are many lessons to be learned about human interdependence by focusing not on relationships that are formed and then maintained, but instead on relationships that are lost or ended by choice or circumstance, such as through changes in institutional affiliations, social status and positions or places. Unlinked lives carry important social meanings, are embedded in complex social processes, and bring consequences for the wellbeing of individuals, families, and societies. To develop this concept, we put forward nine key propositions related to when and how unlinkings happen as processes, as well as some of the consequences of being unlinked as a status or outcome. The coupling of “unlinked lives” with “linked lives” offers a crucial avenue for advancing life course theories and research, integrating scholarship across multiple life periods and transitions, and bridging the two now-distinct traditions of intellectual inquiry on the life course and on social networks.

In this study, I investigate the potential impact of parental unemployment on the academic achievement of children, with a particular focus on the child's age at the time of parental unemployment. While previous research has concentrated on isolated occurrences of unemployment, my study expands on this literature by examining the complete employment history of the parent over the child's life course and exploring how the effects of unemployment may vary based on similar past experiences. To achieve this, I combine population-wide data from the Danish administrative register with the results of mandatory Danish language tests administered in public schools since 2010 to determine whether parental unemployment affects academic performance at ages nine and fifteen. Using inverse probability treatment weighting of marginal structural models, I account for non-random unemployment occurrences and time-variant confounders that may partially mediate the effects of unemployment. My findings demonstrate that parental unemployment can have both persistent and immediate negative effects on children's academic achievement. Although no age period clearly emerges as especially sensitive to the impact of unemployment, the proximity of the unemployment event to the outcome measurement consistently results in a small negative effect on academic achievement. Additionally, the timing of unemployment appears to affect children's academic performance differently based on whether the mother or father experienced unemployment.

Child abuse is a significant global health problem. While data on child abuse in Ghana are scant, anecdotal evidence suggests the vast majority of Ghanaian children have experienced some form of physical or sexual abuse. This paper explores links between early childhood abuse and health outcomes using a life course perspective. Nationally representative cross-sectional data were collected from a sample of 2289 ever-married Ghanaian women in 2017. Women provided retrospective accounts of different types of violence in early childhood. Random-effects logit models were used to examine the impact of two dimensions of early childhood abuse (physical and sexual) on the physical, sexual, and psychosocial health outcomes of women in later years. Women who experienced childhood physical abuse, but not often, were significantly more likely to report physical disabilities in later years than women who did not experience it. Women reporting childhood sexual abuse were more likely to be depressed in later years than those who never experienced such abuse. They were also significantly more likely to report sexually transmitted diseases. Our findings provide support for the life course theory by showing abuse experienced in childhood could have a long-term impact. We therefore suggest the need for early interventions to address child abuse.

Prior research indicates that parental psychiatric disorders increase their offspring’s risk of substance use problems. Though the association is likely bidirectional, the effects of an adult child’s substance use on parental mental health remain understudied. We examined parents’ psychotropic medication use trajectories by parental sex and educational attainment before and after a child’s alcohol- or narcotics-attributable hospitalization. We identified Finnish residents, born 1979–1988, with a first hospitalization for substance use during emerging adulthood (ages 18–29, n = 12,851). Their biological mothers (n = 12,283) and/or fathers (n = 10,765) were followed for the two years before and after the hospitalization. Psychotropic medication use was measured in three-month periods centered around the time of child’s hospitalization, and the probability of psychotropic medication use at each time point was assessed using generalized estimating equations logit models. Among mothers, the prevalence of psychotropic medication use increased during the year before, peaked during the 0–3 months after hospitalization, and remained at a similarly elevated level until the end of follow-up. The prevalence among fathers increased gradually and linearly across follow-up, with minimal changes evident either directly before or after the hospitalization. Parents’ educational attainment did not modify these trajectories. Our results highlight the importance of considering linked lives when quantifying substance use-attributable harms and underscore the need for future research examining the intergenerational spillover effects of substance use in both directions, particularly in mother-child dyads.

Previous research suggests that lack of employment security can lead young adults to experience a higher degree of insecurity with regard to their future life. We test the relationship between life-course insecurity, i.e. worrisome feelings with regard to one’s own future, and young adults’ employment status using a newly developed measurement instrument. Furthermore, we examine whether, in terms of life-course insecurity, specific groups of young people are more affected by insecure employment conditions based on their structural position. Survey data (n = 1087) were collected within a Dutch representative panel among those aged 18–35. Structural equation modelling is used to construct latent dependent variables for experienced insecurity in four life domains, namely ‘work’, ‘finances’, ‘partner and family’ and ‘leisure and personal development’. Results show that, while controlling for gender, life phase, education level and level of neuroticism, lack of employment is associated with higher insecurity in all four domains of life. Precarious employment based on a flexible contract is associated with higher insecurity regarding ‘work’, ‘finances’ and ‘partner and family’. Moreover, we find the relationship between lack of employment and life-course insecurity to be stronger for young people in the 26–35 age bracket. However, higher educational attainment does not attenuate the positive relationship between precarious employment and life-course insecurity. The findings of this study inform our theoretical understanding of agency within the life course of young adults by signaling insecure labour market attachment as a potential constraint to formulating plans for the future.