Childbearing History, Later Life Health, and Mortality in Germany

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. This series presents research findings based either directly on data from the German SocioEconomic Panel Study (SOEP) or using SOEP data as part of an internationally comparable data set (e.g. CNEF, ECHP, LIS, LWS, CHER/PACO). SOEP is a truly multidisciplinary household panel study covering a wide range of social and behavioral sciences: economics, sociology, psychology, survey methodology, econometrics and applied statistics, educational science, political science, public health, behavioral genetics, demography, geography, and sport science. Terms of use: Documents inThe decision to publish a submission in SOEPpapers is made by a board of editors chosen by the DIW Berlin to represent the wide range of disciplines covered by SOEP. There is no external referee process and papers are either accepted or rejected without revision. Papers appear in this series as works in progress and may also appear elsewhere. They often represent preliminary studies and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be requested from the author directly. Abstract: Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we investigated the role of childbearing history in later life health and mortality, paying particular attention to possible differences by sex and region. Higher parity is associated with better self-rated health in Western German mothers and fathers aged 50+, but its relationship with Eastern German women's physical health and survival is negative. Early motherhood is paralleled by poorer physical health in West Germany, whereas late motherhood is associated with lower psychological well-being in East Germany. Moreover, among Western German women, having had a non-marital first birth is weakly correlated with lower physical health. Our findings support the notion of biosocial pathways playing an important role in shaping the fertility-health-nexus. Specifically, the Western German 'male breadwinner' model of specialisation appears to have buffered the stresses associated with childrearing, whereas fertility off the 'normative' life course track supposedly had adverse effects on women's health in West Germany.

Fertility history, health, and health changes in later life: A panel study of British women and men born 1923–49

“…However, in Scandinavian countries, where parents receive generous support from the state, there seems to be no, or a reduced, 'penalty' for high parity (Hinkula et al 2006;Grundy and Kravdal 2008;Grundy and Kravdal 2010), which suggests that contextual factors contribute to observed differentials. This suggestion is also supported by a recent finding that high parity is associated with better health among women and men in West Germany but with worse health among East German women (Hank 2010). In studies that have investigated these associations for men and women, similarities in the findings for both sexes imply that there are underlying biosocial pathways relevant to both, as well as physiological ones for women.…”

“…The finding that the later health of women who have children after age 35 or 40 is better may also partly reflect selective influences: women with initially better health may age at slower rates, have higher fecundity at later ages, and be less deterred from late parenthood on health grounds; this latter effect is also relevant for men (Snowdon et al 1989;Yi and Vaupel 2004). As already discussed, socio-economic and culturalÁhistorical factors may further modify associations (Christensen et al 1998;Gavrilov and Gavrilova 1999;Le Bourg 2001;Doblhammer and Oeppen 2003;Hank 2010).…”

Is Education Always Reducing Fertility? Evidence from Compulsory Schooling Reforms

“…This might be due to medical risks directly related to childbirth. Studies using more recent data are inconclusive: Hank () finds no effect for Germany and Hurt et al . () find no relation between parity and mortality in a meta‐study; if ever mortality risk is highest for women without children and those with more than four children…”

Fertility trajectories and later-life depression among parents in England

“…Although mental health consequences of childlessness have been investigated (see Umberson et al 2010), fewer studies have examined effects of large family size, and results are inconsistent. They report adverse effects of high parity (variously measured as three, four, or five or more children) on mothers but not fathers (Kruk and Reinhold 2014), on fathers but not mothers (Buber and Engelhardt 2008;Pudrovska 2008), on both (Kim et al 2015), or neither (Hank 2010). Associations between birth intervals and mental health in midand later life have not, to our knowledge, been previously investigated.…”