How Do 50-Year-Olds Imagine Their Future: Social Class and Gender Disparities

This paper empirically examines differences in how 50-year-olds imagine their future. It draws on answers to an open-ended survey question in a large British cohort study—the National Child Development Study. Over 6,700 written responses about respondents’ imagined future are examined using text mining methods. Results from a relative frequency analysis and a topic model reveal differences according to gender, occupational class, and educational qualification. The cohort members’ written texts reflect different lifestyles. Men are more likely to mention sport, like golf and football, whereas women are more prone to use words related to family and friends. Respondents with a degree are more likely to write about cultural activities, such as museum or theater visits. Overall, the findings reveal gendered and socially stratified patterns in individual future perceptions, contextualized in relation to leisure, health, and family.

Life Course Neighbourhood Deprivation and Self-Rated Health: Does It Matter Where You Lived in Adolescence and Do Neighbourhood Effects Build Up over Life?

There is an overreliance on concurrent neighbourhood deprivation as a determinant of health. Only a small section of the literature focuses on the cumulative exposure of neighbourhood deprivation over the life course. This paper uses data from the 1958 National Child Development Study, a British birth cohort study, linked to 1971–2011 Census data at the neighbourhood level to longitudinally model self-rated health between ages 23 and 55 by Townsend deprivation score between ages 16 and 55. Change in self-rated health is analysed using ordinal multilevel models to test the strength of association with neighbourhood deprivation at age 16, concurrently and cumulatively. The results show that greater neighbourhood deprivation at age 16 predicts worsening self-rated health between ages 33 and 50. The association with concurrent neighbourhood deprivation is shown to be stronger compared with the measurement at age 16 when both are adjusted in the model. The concurrent association with change in self-rated health is explained by cumulative neighbourhood deprivation. These findings suggest that neglecting exposure to neighbourhood deprivation over the life course will underestimate the neighbourhood effect. They also have potential implications for public policy suggesting that neighbourhood socioeconomic equality may bring about better population health.

Последствия школьной травли для ее участников

Статья посвящена краткосрочным и отдаленным последствиям, которые может оказывать опыт участия в школьном буллинге на различные аспекты благополучия вырастающих школьников в дальнейшем. Приводятся данные междисциплинарных лонгитюдных исследований (в первую очередь, British National Child Development Study, The Great Smoky Mountain Study, Finnish 1981 Birth Cohort Study и др.), метаанализов, а также «поперечных срезов», в которых анализируются последствия ситуаций школьного буллинга. Показано, что буллинг в школе вносит вклад в повышение рисков самоповреждающего и суицидального поведения, психосоматических проблем, употребления психоактивных веществ, криминализации и др., причем многое касается не только тех, кто оказывался в роли жертвы буллинга, но и тех, кто играл роль агрессивной жертвы или агрессора в буллинг-ситуациях. Вовлеченность в ситуацию буллинга негативно отражается в перспективе на физическом и психическом здоровье, реализуемой образовательной траектории и вовлеченности в учебу, дружеских и супружеских отношениях, успешности трудоустройства, финансовом благополучии выросших школьников. Спектр негативных последствий буллинга чрезвычайно широк и должен учитываться в проектировании антибуллинговых программ. В то же время налицо недостаток исследований последствий буллинга для детей, которые присутствовали в ситуациях буллинга в роли свидетелей: некоторые данные указывают на то, что такой опыт тоже может иметь негативные последствия для социализации, однако эти представления нуждаются в дальнейшем изучении. Наконец, рассматриваются основные направления и выигрыши от внедрения системы профилактики и прекращения буллинга в образовательных учреждениях.

Could teacher-perceived parental interest be an important factor in understanding how education relates to later physiological health? A life course approach

Education is associated with later health, and notably with an indicator of physiological health measuring the cost of adapting to stressful conditions, named allostatic load. Education is itself the result of a number of upstream variables. We examined the origins of educational attainment through the lens of interactions between families and school i.e. parents’ interest in their child’s education as perceived by teachers. This study aims to examine whether parental interest during a child’s educational trajectory is associated with subsequent allostatic load, and whether education or other pathways mediate this relationship. We used data from 9 377 women and men born in 1958 in Great Britain and included in the National Child Development Study to conduct secondary data analyses. Parental interest was measured from questionnaire responses by teachers collected at age 7, 11 and 16. Allostatic load was defined using 14 biomarkers assayed in blood from a biosample collected at 44 years of age. Linear regression analyses were carried out on a sample of 8 113 participants with complete data for allostatic load, missing data were imputed. Participants whose parents were considered to be uninterested in their education by their teacher had a higher allostatic load on average in midlife in both men (β = 0,41 [0,29; 0,54]) and women (β = 0,69 [0,54; 0,83]). We examined the role of the educational and other pathways including psychosocial, material/financial, and behavioral variables, as potential mediators in the relationship between parental interest and allostatic load. The direct link between parental interest and allostatic load was completely mediated in men, but only partially mediated in women. This work provides evidence that parents’ interest in their child’s education as perceived by teachers is associated with subsequent physiological health in mid-life and may highlight a form of cultural dissonance between family and educational spheres.

Associations Between Hearing and Cognitive Abilities From Childhood to Middle Age: The National Child Development Study 1958

Previous cross-sectional findings indicate that hearing and cognitive abilities are positively correlated in childhood, adulthood, and older age. We used an unusually valuable longitudinal dataset from a single-year birth cohort study, the National Child Development Study 1958, to test how hearing and cognitive abilities relate to one another across the life course from childhood to middle age. Cognitive ability was assessed with a single test of general cognitive ability at age 11 years and again with multiple tests at age 50. Hearing ability was assessed, using a pure tone audiogram, in childhood at ages 11 and 16 and again at age 44. Associations between childhood and middle-age hearing and cognitive abilities were investigated using structural equation modelling. We found that higher cognitive ability was associated with better hearing (indicated by a lower score on the hearing ability variables); this association was apparent in childhood ( r = -0.120, p <0.001) and middle age ( r = -0.208, p <0.001). There was a reciprocal relationship between hearing and cognitive abilities over time: better hearing in childhood was weakly associated with a higher cognitive ability in middle age ( β = -0.076, p = 0.001), and a higher cognitive ability in childhood was associated with better hearing in middle age ( β = -0.163, p <0.001). This latter, stronger effect was mediated by occupational and health variables in adulthood. Our results point to the discovery of a potentially life-long relationship between hearing and cognitive abilities and demonstrate how these variables may influence one another over time.

Approaching Retirement After a Working Life in Poverty

This paper uses a life course perspective to explore and understand how an individual’s experiences over their lifetime contribute to the formation of a growing consciousness about their impending retirement. The fieldwork took place in 2016 and was part of a wider mixed methods study about retirement in the UK, which used data from the 1958 birth cohort study (also known as the National Child Development Study). The paper focuses on the qualitative dimension of the study and uses in-depth case studies of four people approaching 60 to consider, in particular, the effects of health, financial resources and employment history on their views on retiring, including the anticipated timing of their exit from the labour market. All four were purposively chosen because they had experienced low pay or poverty during their lifetime and were employed in relatively low paid jobs. State Pension Ages (SPAs) are on the rise in many countries, including the UK, and the authors maintain that it is important to study the working poor, who, even though are more likely to continue working until SPA, are more prone to suffer from poor health, and less likely to be able to put savings aside for their retirement.

The politics of the excluded: abjection and reconciliation amongst the British precariat

In this paper, we use a powerful empirical resource to address what the popular politics of disadvantage might entail in contemporary Britain. We take advantage of the unusually rich qualitative data from the British National Child Development Study, a cohort of Britons born in 1 week in 1958, to focus specifically on the accounts of those who are particularly disadvantaged. By concentrating on these a small number of qualitative accounts, which have been rigorously selected from the wider nationally representative sample on the basis of their relatively small amounts of economic and cultural capital, we will explore in detail the accounts and identities of these disadvantaged Britons with a view to explicating their political frameworks, their social identities and more broadly their orientations towards mobilisation.

Psychosocial predictors of asthma onset during mid-adulthood: evidence from the National Child Development Study

This paper provides evidence about how psychosocial factors predict asthma onset during mid-adulthood. Questions addressed are:1. Do life course adversities predict asthma onset? What types of adversity are important?2. What factors confound and mediate associations between childhood adversity and asthma onset?3. In the context of life course adversity, do psychological factors predict asthma onset?Data from the National Child Development Study from birth to age 42 were used. Asthma onset was measured between 33 and 42.To reduce bias and maintain numbers, missing values were imputed in multiple data sets. Logistic regression analyses were conducted of asthma onset on life course adversities, classified as material (including occupation-related) and social (family-/relationship-related, child loss, traumatic). Nested models were used to address questions 2 and 3, and a wide range of factors tested.After adjustment for gender, asthma onset during mid-adulthood was more common among cohort members who reported life course adversities (odds ratio per category = 1.232 (1.140–1.332)) in eight categories. Social adversities predicted asthma onset after adjustment for material adversities. The association between childhood adversity and asthma onset was mediated by subsequent adversity and depressive symptoms at 33. Asthma onset was predicted by female gender, atopic history, life course adversity, internalising childhood temperament and depressive symptoms at 33.This study contributes to a small evidence base that life course adversities substantially increase the risk of adult-onset asthma, and highlights the importance of psychosocial pathways. The salience of depressive symptoms shortly before diagnosed onset is a new finding.

Do children’s expectations about future physical activity predict their physical activity in adulthood?

Background Much of the population fails to meet recommended physical activity (PA) levels, but there remains considerable individual variation. By understanding drivers of different trajectories, interventions can be better targeted and more effective. One such driver may be a person’s physical activity identity (PAI)—the extent to which a person perceives PA as central to who they are. Methods Using survey information and a unique body of essays written at age 11 from the National Child Development Study (N = 10 500), essays mentioning PA were automatically identified using the machine learning technique support vector classification and PA trajectories were estimated using latent class analysis. Analyses tested the extent to which childhood PAI correlated with activity levels from age 23 through 55 and with trajectories across adulthood. Results 42.2% of males and 33.5% of females mentioned PA in their essays, describing active and/or passive engagement. Active PAI in childhood was correlated with higher levels of activity for men but not women, and was correlated with consistently active PA trajectories for both genders. Passive PAI was not related to PA for either gender. Conclusions This study offers a novel approach for analysing large qualitative datasets to assess identity and behaviours. Findings suggest that at as young as 11 years old, the way a young person conceptualizes activity as part of their identity has a lasting association with behaviour. Still, an active identity may require a supportive sociocultural context to manifest in subsequent behaviour.