IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/diw/diwsop/diw_sp305.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Childbearing History, Later Life Health, and Mortality in Germany

Author

Listed:
  • Karsten Hank

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Karsten Hank, 2010. "Childbearing History, Later Life Health, and Mortality in Germany," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 305, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    • Handle: RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp305
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.357373.de/diw_sp0305.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Bruno Arpino & Jordi Gumà & Albert JuliÃ, 2021. "Deviations From Standard Family Histories and Subjective Wellbeing at Older Ages," Econometrics Working Papers Archive 2021_16, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Statistica, Informatica, Applicazioni "G. Parenti".
    2. M. Fort & N. Schneeweis & R. Winter-Ebmer, 2011. "More Schooling, More Children: Compulsory Schooling Reforms and Fertility in Europe," Working Papers wp787, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    3. Emily Grundy & Sanna Read, 2015. "Pathways from fertility history to later life health: Results from analyses of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 32(4), pages 107-146.
    4. Maria Sironi & George B. Ploubidis & Emily M. Grundy, 2020. "Fertility History and Biomarkers Using Prospective Data: Evidence From the 1958 National Child Development Study," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 57(2), pages 529-558, April.
    5. Lisa Becker & Sarah Negash & Nadja Kartschmit & Alexander Kluttig & Rafael Mikolajczyk, 2021. "Association between Parenthood and Health Behaviour in Later Life—Results from the Population-Based CARLA Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(1), pages 1-12, December.
    6. Martin O’Flaherty & Janeen Baxter & Michele Haynes & Gavin Turrell, 2016. "The Family Life Course and Health: Partnership, Fertility Histories, and Later-Life Physical Health Trajectories in Australia," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 53(3), pages 777-804, June.
    7. Katherine Keenan & Emily Grundy, 2019. "Fertility History and Physical and Mental Health Changes in European Older Adults," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 35(3), pages 459-485, July.
    8. Robin S. Högnäs & David J. Roelfs & Eran Shor & Christa Moore & Thomas Reece, 2017. "J-Curve? A Meta-Analysis and Meta-Regression of Parity and Parental Mortality," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 36(2), pages 273-308, April.
    9. Brienna Perelli-Harris & Stefanie Hoherz & Fenaba Addo & Trude Lappegård & Ann Evans & Sharon Sassler & Marta Styrc, 2018. "Do Marriage and Cohabitation Provide Benefits to Health in Mid-Life? The Role of Childhood Selection Mechanisms and Partnership Characteristics Across Countries," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 37(5), pages 703-728, October.
    10. Barclay, Kieron & Keenan, Katherine & Grundy, Emily & Kolk, Martin & Myrskylä, Mikko, 2016. "Reproductive history and post-reproductive mortality: A sibling comparison analysis using Swedish register data," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 82-92.
    11. Fort, Margherita & Schneeweis, Nicole & Winter-Ebmer, Rudolf, 2011. "More Schooling, More Children," Economics Series 281, Institute for Advanced Studies.
    12. Karsten Hank & Michael Wagner, 2013. "Parenthood, Marital Status, and Well-Being in Later Life: Evidence from SHARE," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 114(2), pages 639-653, November.
    13. Shor, Eran & Roelfs, David J. & Bugyi, Paul & Schwartz, Joseph E., 2012. "Meta-analysis of marital dissolution and mortality: Reevaluating the intersection of gender and age," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 46-59.
    14. Beatrice Baaba Tawiah, 2023. "The Effect of Children on Health," Working Papers Dissertations 103, Paderborn University, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics.
    15. Jelena Čvorović & Kathryn Coe, 2017. "Reproductive Investment and Health Costs in Roma Women," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(11), pages 1-12, November.
    16. Yi Chen & Hanming Fang, 2018. "The Long-Term Consequences of Having Fewer Children in Old Age: Evidence from China’s “Later, Longer, Fewer” Campaign," NBER Working Papers 25041, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Petra Rattay & Elena von der Lippe, 2020. "Association between Living with Children and the Health and Health Behavior of Women and Men. Are There Differences by Age? Results of the “German Health Update” (GEDA) Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(9), pages 1-19, May.
    18. Kruk, Eberhard, 2011. "The Effect of Children on Depression in Old Age," MEA discussion paper series 11249, Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA) at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy.
    19. Bongoh Kye & Erika Arenas & Graciela Teruel & Luis Rubalcava, 2014. "Education, Elderly Health, and Differential Population Aging in South Korea: A Demographic Approach," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 30(26), pages 753-794.
    20. Kruk, Kai Eberhard & Reinhold, Steffen, 2014. "The effect of children on depression in old age," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 1-11.
    21. Maria Sironi, 2019. "Fertility histories and chronic conditions later in life in Europe," European Journal of Ageing, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 259-272, September.
    22. Margherita Fort & Nicole Schneeweis & Rudolf Winter-Ebmer, 2014. "More Schooling, More Children? Compulsory Schooling and Fertility in Europe," CESifo Working Paper Series 5068, CESifo.
    23. Barclay, Kieron & Keenan, Katherine & Grundy, Emily & Kolk, Martin & Myrskylä, Mikko, 2016. "Reproductive history and post-reproductive mortality: a sibling comparison analysis using Swedish register data," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 65602, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    24. Bruno Arpino & Jordi Gumà & Albert Julià, 2018. "Early-life conditions and health at older ages: The mediating role of educational attainment, family and employment trajectories," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(4), pages 1-17, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    reproductive history; health; mortality; life course; SOEP;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. SOEP based publications

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:diw:diwsop:diw_sp305. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Bibliothek (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sodiwde.html .

    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.