Longitudinal and Life Course Studies (E-Journal)
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Handling attrition and non-response in longitudinal data
Full text linkoai:edrev.asu.edu:article/21Procedures for handling attrition and missing data in longitudinal studies are discussed. A multiple imputation (MI) strategy is developed that can be applied to complex multilevel data. It is both general and statistically efficient and estimation software is available. An example of its use is given
Social Connections in the Inner City: Examination across the Life Course
Full text linkSocial connectedness has been shown to be related to health and well-being, yet there is little knowledge about its developmental and intergenerational origins. We examine the childhood, family, and neighborhood origins of social connectedness in young adulthood in a cohort of African American children (N=1242) from Chicago followed since 1966. The five measures of social connections are: political involvement, organizational membership, church involvement, family ties, and friend ties. In multivariate analyses, predictors of social connectedness were found across the life course: first grade social adaptation to school, childhood family resources, family social participation, adult neighborhood characteristics, social class, and marital status. We conclude that adult social connections have roots in childhood behavior and social involvement, family resources and family social connections as well as one’s own resources and the neighborhood where one lives.
Development of nighttime bladder control from 4 – 9 years: association with dimensions of parent rated child maturational level, child temperament and maternal psychopathology.
Full text linkBackground: This study investigates variability in acquisition of nighttime bladder control in a large, general population sample of children by defining a developmental typology through latent class analysis. Also examined is the association of bedwetting classes with risk factors in early childhood including maturational level, temperament and exposure to maternal psychopathology.
Methods: Data from a UK population sample of over 10,000 children from age 4-9 years were available from ALSPAC. Parents completed questionnaires asking about their child’s bedwetting (on five occasions during the assessment period) and maturational level (at 18 months), temperament (24 months), and maternal depressive / anxious psychopathology (21 months). Longitudinal phenotypes capturing population heterogeneity in nighttime bladder control were derived using latent class analysis. Associations with the risk factors were investigated using multinomial logistic regression.
Results: Five groups of children were identified with different patterns of development: 1) normative (69.9% of 10,818 sample); (2) delayed (8.4%); (3) severely delayed (9.3%); (4) persistent (8.6%), and (5) relapse (3.8%). Results indicated that the risk factors were associated with an increase in the odds of children experiencing problems either attaining nighttime bladder control or with relapse in bedwetting after a period of initial dryness.
Conclusions: Development of nighttime bladder control and onset of bedwetting problems are captured by this developmental typology approach, enabling factors that affect risk of bedwetting to be determined and targeted. Further investigation is required into risk factors relating to individuals and their environments that are associated with difficulties attaining or maintaining nighttime continence, including neurobiological and genetic factors
Does mothers’ employment affect children’s development? Evidence from the children of the British 1970 Birth Cohort and the American NLSY79
Full text linkBackground: The increasing employment of mothers of young children in the UK and the USA is believed to affect children adversely. Maternity leave and part-time employment, more common in the UK than the US, are possible offsets.Methods: This paper analyses the cognitive and behavioural development of school aged children by maternal employment before the child’s first birthday. Data come from the second generation of two cohort studies: the 1970 British Birth Cohort Study (BCS70) and the US 1979 National Longitudinal Study of Youth Child (NLSY79). Both contain several outcomes per child, in some cases several children per mother. The hierarchical structure is tackled by multi-level modelling. The BCS70 provides data back to birth for the mothers we study, and the NLSY79 started collecting data from mothers in their early to mid teens, thus supplying a good array of controls for confounding variables (such as maternal education and ability, family history) which may affect labour market participation.Results: Similar to other studies, results are mixed and modest. Only two out of five US estimates of maternal employment in the child’s first year have a significant (0.05 level) coefficient on child development – negative for reading comprehension, positive for freedom from internalized behaviour problems. None of the estimates were significant for four child outcomes modelled in Britain. Conclusions: There is little evidence of harm to school-age children from maternal employment during a child's infancy, especially if employment is part-time, and in a context where several months of maternity leave is the norm. .
Family Socialization, Economic Self-Efficacy, and the Attainment of Financial Independence in Early Adulthood
Full text linkThe attainment of financial independence is a key marker of the contemporary transition to adulthood. In this study we ask, how do young adults gain the capacity to support themselves? We contend that communication about work in the family during adolescence is an essential precursor of economic self-efficacy during adolescence and financial independence in early adulthood. Drawing upon rich longitudinal data that span adolescence and young adulthood, we first ask whether family communication and socialization practices surrounding work and finances influence the development of ways of thinking about oneself that imply self-reliance and confidence in the economic domain (economic self-efficacy). Second, we assess whether these components of the family’s economic climate have long-term influences on the transition to adulthood, status attainment, and financial independence. Our findings indicate that direct communications about work with parents foster the development of economic self-efficacy. This positive dimension of the self-concept fosters achievement during the transition to adulthood (e.g., educational achievement, employment status, and income attainment), which, in turn, heighten financial independence. In contrast, looking to parents for money during adolescence (that is, receiving a regular allowance) appears to diminish economic self-efficacy and does not promote socioeconomic attainment