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- Barclay, Kieron, 1986-, et al.
(author)
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Birth Spacing and Parents' Physical and Mental Health : An Analysis Using Individual and Sibling Fixed Effects
- 2024
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In: Demography. - 0070-3370 .- 1533-7790. ; 61:2, s. 393-418
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- An exten sive lit er a ture has exam ined the rela tion ship between birth spac ing and sub se quent health out comes for par ents, par tic u larly for moth ers. However, this research has drawn almost exclu sively on obser va tional research designs, and almost all stud ies have been lim ited to adjusting for observ able fac tors that could con found the rela tion ship between birth spac ing and health out comes. In this study, we use Nor we gian reg is ter data to exam ine the rela tion ship between birth spac ing and the num ber of gen eral prac ti tioner con sul ta tions for moth ers' and fathers' phys i cal and men tal health con cerns imme di ately after child birth (1-5 and 6-11 months after child birth), in the medium term (5-6 years after child bear ing), and in the long term (10-11 years after child bear ing). To exam ine short term health out comes, we esti mate indi vid ual fixed-effects mod els: we hold con stant fac tors that could influ ence par ents' birth spacing behav ior and their health, com par ing health out comes after differ ent births to the same par ent. We apply sib ling fixed effects in our anal y sis of medium- and long-term out comes, hold ing con stant moth ers' and fathers' fam ily back grounds. The results from our ana ly ses that do not apply indi vid ual or sib ling fixed effects are con sis tent with much of the pre vi ous lit er a ture: shorter and lon ger birth inter vals are asso ci ated with worse health out comes than birth inter vals of approx i ma tely 2-3 years. Estimates from indi vid ual fixed-effects mod els sug gest that par tic u larly short inter vals have a mod est neg a tive effect on mater nal men tal health in the short term, with more ambig u ous evi dence that par tic u larly short or long inter vals might mod estly influ ence short-, medium, and longterm phys i cal health out comes. Overall, these results are con sis tent with small to neg li gi ble effects of birth spac ing behav ior on (nonpreg nancyrelated) parental health outcomes.
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| 2. |
- Peters, Steffen, 1989-
(author)
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Who starts a family? : The prospective association between psychological factors and family formation processes
- 2024
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The role of psychological factors for family formation processes has been underexplored in demographic research. However, psychological concepts such as personality, identity, or skills may have become increasingly relevant for family formation processes such as marital behavior, childbearing, or partnership dissolution, in particular in countries with high levels of individualism. This dissertation aims to address this research gap in various ways. First, the dissertation chapters examine the prospective associations between personality and family formation (marriage, fertility, dissolution) (chapters 1 and 2), identity and marriage (chapter 3), and leadership skills and family formation (marriage, fertility) (chapter 4). Second, the potential mediating role of socio-economic status indicators (income, education) for these relationships is explored (chapters 2, 3 and 4). Third, full siblings are compared to each other when applicable in order to control for shared background factors such as genetics or parental background (chapters 2 and 4). For these purposes, different data sources are used including large and representative survey data from Germany (chapter 1), Swedish register data (chapters 2 and 4), and survey data from Finland (chapter 3). Methodologically, a mix of widely used analytical methods have been applied such as event-history analyses, linear probability models, or Poisson regression models including individual and sibling fixed effects. The findings of this thesis suggest that psychological factors shape family formation processes across the selected European countries (Germany, Sweden, Finland) with high levels of individualism. Personality factors linked to social abilities (extraversion, social maturity, agreeableness) generally show positive associations with childbearing (chapters 1 and 2) and the probability to get married, and negative correlations with dissolution processes (chapter 2). Emotional stability is also positively associated with family formation processes (marriage, fertility), and negatively linked with partnership dissolution (chapter 2). However, these associations only relate to patterns for males whereas females do either not show clear associations (chapter 1), or had to be neglected based on data restrictions (chapter 2). Furthermore, certainty and commitment with future life plans (as indicator for identity) are positively linked with marriage risks over time (chapter 3). Regarding leadership skills (LS), as one specific type of skills, similar associations to personality effects from study 1 and 2 have been found, i.e. LS are positively correlated with marriage and fertility (chapter 4). The mediating effects of income and education, are relatively small for all associations so that future research may examine the role of other potential mechanisms such as intentions, attitudes, or health. Additionally, sibling fixed effects approaches do not show large difference compared to the patterns that are described above.
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