Disability and family formation

• Few studies have investigated family formation among people with disabilities. Available evidence on disability and family formation shows people with disabilities to have a low propensity of finding a life partner. Being married or cohabiting has been associated with improved health in children. There is a general lack of investigations on how family formation among people with disability has changed in recent decades. Important to note, there is scanty of evidence of how the situation of disability and family formation looks like in Sweden today.Methods: Using Swedish national register data obtained from the Umeå SIMSAM Lab, the study applies statistical life course techniques such as Cox regression and sequence analysis to identify factors affecting the relationship between disability and family formation. We follow the life courses of persons with disability born in 1973-1977 up to when they are aged 16-37 years, which is in 1990 and 2010. The selected age interval represents the time when crucial transitioning often takes place i.e. transition into education, independent living, work and family formation. Disability based on having received early retirement pension during the follow-up period.Results: Out of 700000 individuals born during 1973-1977, the study shows differences in partnership chances for people with disability and not.Conclusions: There is need for further investigations on why people with work related disability have lower rates of cohabitation and marriage compared to the general population.Key messages:Despite the major improvements in the lives of people with disability.There is need for to look into ways of increasing their chances of finding a partner.

Subject headings

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap -- Folkhälsovetenskap, global hälsa, socialmedicin och epidemiologi (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences -- Public Health, Global Health, Social Medicine and Epidemiology (hsv//eng)

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

art (subject category)