IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v61y2005i8p1795-1808.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Time on my side? Life course trajectories of poverty and health

Author

Listed:
  • McDonough, Peggy
  • Sacker, Amanda
  • Wiggins, Richard D.

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between poverty and health in time. Following the argument that time is significant for shaping the experience of being poor or not poor and growing evidence of heterogeneity in long-term patterns of poverty, we investigate whether different kinds of poverty have distinct consequences for long-term health. Using data from the 1968-1996 annual waves of the United States Panel Study of Income Dynamics Data, we estimate a general growth mixture model to assess the relationship between the longitudinal courses of poverty and health. The model allows us to first estimate latent poverty classes in the data and then determine their effects on latent self-rated health. Four types of long-term poverty patterns characterized as stable nonpoor, exiting poverty, entering poverty and stable poor were evident in the data. These different kinds of poverty affected self-rated health trajectories in distinct ways, but worked in concert with age, education and race to create gaps in initial health status that were constant over time.

Suggested Citation

  • McDonough, Peggy & Sacker, Amanda & Wiggins, Richard D., 2005. "Time on my side? Life course trajectories of poverty and health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 61(8), pages 1795-1808, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:61:y:2005:i:8:p:1795-1808
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(05)00116-4
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Borg, Vilhelm & Kristensen, Tage S., 2000. "Social class and self-rated health: can the gradient be explained by differences in life style or work environment?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 51(7), pages 1019-1030, October.
    2. Martikainen, Pekka & Stansfeld, Stephen & Hemingway, Harry & Marmot, Michael, 1999. "Determinants of socioeconomic differences in change in physical and mental functioning," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 499-507, August.
    3. Hoeymans, N. & Feskens, E.J.M. & Van Den Bos, G.A.M. & Kromhout, D., 1997. "Age, time, and cohort effects on functional status and self-rated health in elderly men," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 87(10), pages 1620-1625.
    4. Thiede, Michael & Traub, Stefan, 1997. "Mutual influences of health and poverty evidence from German panel data," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 45(6), pages 867-877, September.
    5. McDonough, Peggy & Amick, Benjamin C., 2001. "The social context of health selection: a longitudinal study of health and employment," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 135-145, July.
    6. Bobby L. Jones & Daniel S. Nagin & Kathryn Roeder, 2001. "A SAS Procedure Based on Mixture Models for Estimating Developmental Trajectories," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 29(3), pages 374-393, February.
    7. Hope, Steven & Power, Chris & Rodgers, Bryan, 1999. "Does financial hardship account for elevated psychological distress in lone mothers?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 49(12), pages 1637-1649, December.
    8. Lantz, Paula M. & Lynch, John W. & House, James S. & Lepkowski, James M. & Mero, Richard P. & Musick, Marc A. & Williams, David R., 2001. "Socioeconomic disparities in health change in a longitudinal study of US adults: the role of health-risk behaviors," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 29-40, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gunasekara, Fiona Imlach & Carter, Kristie & Blakely, Tony, 2011. "Change in income and change in self-rated health: Systematic review of studies using repeated measures to control for confounding bias," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 193-201, January.
    2. Kåre Bævre & Øystein Kravdal, 2014. "The effects of earlier income variation on mortality: An analysis of Norwegian register data," Population Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 68(1), pages 81-94, March.
    3. Do, D. Phuong & Frank, Reanne & Finch, Brian Karl, 2012. "Does SES explain more of the black/white health gap than we thought? Revisiting our approach toward understanding racial disparities in health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(9), pages 1385-1393.
    4. Li Donni, Paolo, 2019. "The unobserved pattern of material hardship and health among older Americans," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 31-42.
    5. Baydar, Nazli & Kieckhefer, Gail & Joesch, Jutta M. & Greek, April & Kim, Hyoshin, 2010. "Changes in the health burden of a national sample of children with asthma," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 321-328, January.
    6. Park, Sojung & Kim, BoRin & Kim, Soojung, 2016. "Poverty and working status in changes of unmet health care need in old age," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 120(6), pages 638-645.
    7. Kieran Walsh & Thomas Scharf & Norah Keating, 2017. "Social exclusion of older persons: a scoping review and conceptual framework," European Journal of Ageing, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 81-98, March.
    8. Abdulkarim M. Meraya & Nilanjana Dwibedi & Xi Tan & Kim Innes & Sophie Mitra & Usha Sambamoorthi, 2018. "The dynamic relationships between economic status and health measures among working‐age adults in the United States," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(8), pages 1160-1174, August.
    9. Asakawa, Keiko & Senthilselvan, Ambikaipakan & Feeny, David & Johnson, Jeffrey & Rolfson, Darryl, 2012. "Trajectories of health-related quality of life differ by age among adults: Results from an eight-year longitudinal study," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 207-218.
    10. Do, D. Phuong, 2009. "The dynamics of income and neighborhood context for population health: Do long-term measures of socioeconomic status explain more of the black/white health disparity than single-point-in-time measures," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(8), pages 1368-1375, April.
    11. Zhiping Zhong & Lin Lin & Ying Yang, 2020. "Study on the Health Status and Health Service Utilization for the Rural Elderly in the Metropolitan Suburb During the Urbanization Process: A Case for Mingxing Village, Guangzhou," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(9), pages 1-14, April.
    12. Laura Valadez Martinez, 2014. "Bridging the Gap: Conceptual and Empirical Dimensions of Child Wellbeing in Rural Mexico," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 116(2), pages 567-591, April.
    13. Cullati, Stéphane, 2014. "The influence of work-family conflict trajectories on self-rated health trajectories in Switzerland: A life course approach," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 23-33.
    14. Timo-Kolja Pfoertner & Hans-Juergen Andress & Christian Janssen, 2011. "Income or living standard and health in Germany: different ways of measurement of relative poverty with regard to self-rated health," International Journal of Public Health, Springer;Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), vol. 56(4), pages 373-384, August.
    15. Hannes Kröger & Johan Fritzell & Rasmus Hoffmann, 2016. "The Association of Levels of and Decline in Grip Strength in Old Age with Trajectories of Life Course Occupational Position," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(5), pages 1-16, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Balia, Silvia & Jones, Andrew M., 2008. "Mortality, lifestyle and socio-economic status," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 1-26, January.
    2. Vallejo-Torres, Laura & Morris, Stephen, 2010. "The contribution of smoking and obesity to income-related inequalities in health in England," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(6), pages 1189-1198, September.
    3. Ágnes Utasi, 2003. "Independet, never married people in their thirties: Remaining single," Demográfia English Edition, Hungarian Demographic Research Institute, vol. 48(5), pages 122-143.
    4. Sridharan, Sanjeev & Jones, Bobby & Caudill, Barry & Nakaima, April, 2016. "Steps towards incorporating heterogeneities into program theory: A case study of a data-driven approach," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 88-97.
    5. McGovern, Mark E. & Rokicki, Slawa & Reichman, Nancy E., 2022. "Maternal depression and economic well-being: A quasi-experimental approach," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 305(C).
    6. Tansel, Aysit & Karao?lan, Deniz, 2016. "The Causal Effect of Education on Health Behaviors: Evidence from Turkey," IZA Discussion Papers 10020, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Chen, Yuanyuan & Wang, Haining & Cheng, Zhiming & Smyth, Russell, 2023. "Education and Migrant Health in China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    8. Fritzell, Sara & Ringbäck Weitoft, Gunilla & Fritzell, Johan & Burström, Bo, 2007. "From macro to micro: The health of Swedish lone mothers during changing economic and social circumstances," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(12), pages 2474-2488, December.
    9. Jinhee Kim & Swarn Chatterjee, 2019. "Student Loans, Health, and Life Satisfaction of US Households: Evidence from a Panel Study," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 40(1), pages 36-50, March.
    10. Lavanya Vijayasingham & Uma Jogulu & Pascale Allotey, 2018. "Enriching the Organizational Context of Chronic Illness Experience Through an Ethics of Care Perspective," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 153(1), pages 29-40, November.
    11. Elena Cottini & Claudio Lucifora, 2013. "GINI DP 86: Inequalities at work Job quality, Health and Low pay in European Workplaces," GINI Discussion Papers 86, AIAS, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies.
    12. Nurullah Emir EKINCI, 2018. "Investigation of Depression Level of Middle School Students’ According to Some Variables," Asian Journal of Education and Training, Asian Online Journal Publishing Group, vol. 4(4), pages 280-283.
    13. Fritzell, Sara & Burstrom, Bo, 2006. "Economic strain and self-rated health among lone and couple mothers in Sweden during the 1990s compared to the 1980s," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(2-3), pages 253-264, December.
    14. Hanna Alastalo & Mikaela B von Bonsdorff & Katri Räikkönen & Anu-Katriina Pesonen & Clive Osmond & David J P Barker & Kati Heinonen & Eero Kajantie & Johan G Eriksson, 2013. "Early Life Stress and Physical and Psychosocial Functioning in Late Adulthood," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(7), pages 1-8, July.
    15. Dirlam, Jonathan & Zheng, Hui, 2017. "Job satisfaction developmental trajectories and health: A life course perspective," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 95-103.
    16. Vanessa Hunn & Claudia Heath, 2011. "Path Analysis of Welfare Use: Depression as a Mediating Factor," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 32(2), pages 341-355, June.
    17. Dmytro Babik & Rahul Singh & Xia Zhao & Eric W. Ford, 2017. "What you think and what I think: Studying intersubjectivity in knowledge artifacts evaluation," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 31-56, February.
    18. Yunyun Jiang & Haitao Zheng & Tianhao Zhao, 2019. "Socioeconomic Status and Morbidity Rate Inequality in China: Based on NHSS and CHARLS Data," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(2), pages 1-19, January.
    19. Nabanita Datta Gupta & Nicolai Kristensen, 2008. "Work environment satisfaction and employee health: panel evidence from Denmark, France and Spain, 1994–2001," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 9(1), pages 51-61, February.
    20. Paolo Brunori & Alain Trannoy & Caterina Francesca Guidi, 2021. "Ranking populations in terms of inequality of health opportunity: A flexible latent type approach," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(2), pages 358-383, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:61:y:2005:i:8:p:1795-1808. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.