1,721,058 research outputs found
Born out of wedlock and never married--it breaks a man's heart
No full textThis study examines whether men who were born outside marriage in early twentieth century Sweden run a higher risk of dying from ischaemic heart disease (IHD) in middle and old age compared to men who were born inside marriage. Analyses are based on the male half of the Uppsala Birth Cohort Study, Sweden, consisting of all 7411 boys who were born alive at the Uppsala Academic Hospital during the period 1915-1929. The statistical method used is Cox regression. The results demonstrated a statistically significant excess mortality among men born outside marriage, which could not be explained by either social class of origin or birth weight for gestational age. Instead, this elevated mortality was largely explained by the more than doubled mortality risk among those men born outside wedlock who never married in relation to the corresponding group of men born to married parents. Even when three indicators of adult socio-economic status were adjusted for, men who never married and were born outside marriage still ran a 93 per cent higher risk of dying from IHD than men who never married but were born inside marriage. This intervening effect of adult marital status was restricted to the category of never married men. Thus, although divorcees demonstrated an even higher mortality risk in relation to the married than did those who never married, this was equally true for men born inside and men born outside marriage. In the concluding section of the paper I argue that these findings should be understood in terms of the childhood social stigma that the illegitimate children experienced. This stigma may have resulted in an increased susceptibility, which in combination with the "failure" in adulthood to comply with the established norms of society regarding matrimony led to higher levels of IHD mortality in middle and old age.Illegitimacy Ischaemic heart disease Marital status Mortality Sweden
Birth order and mortality: a life-long follow-up of 14,200 boys and girls born in early 20th century Sweden
No full textThe present study examines the sex-specific patterns of mortality by birth order in four stages of the life-course, using Poisson and logistic regression analysis. The main question posed is whether there is any continuing social effect of birth order when (a) biological factors at birth, (b) other social factors at birth and (c) socio-economic circumstances in adulthood are adjusted for. The analyses are based on the Uppsala Birth Cohort Study consisting of all 14,192 boys and girls who were born alive at the Uppsala Academic Hospital in Sweden during the period 1915-29. The results showed that all-cause mortality differed according to birth order in all of the four studied age intervals when birth year, mother's age, birth weight, gestational age, diseases of mother, diseases of the infant, social class and mother's marital status at the time of childbirth were adjusted for. The general tendency was for laterborn siblings, particularly girls/women, to demonstrate a higher mortality risk than firstborn children. However, in the oldest age group (55-80 years) the previously significant association between birth order and male mortality became insignificant when adult socio-economic circumstances were controlled for. This indicates that the long-term influence of childhood birth order position on mortality is partly mediated by adult social class, education and income. The concluding section of the paper notes that laterborn children, and especially girls, were a disadvantaged group in early 20th century Sweden. Thus, for the subjects in the present study, the childhood social conditions linked to birth order position seem to have had consequences for these individuals' health and survival that extend over the whole life-course.Birth order Mortality Social class Birth weight Sweden
Uppväxt och skolbetyg: En uppföljning av barn födda på Akademiska sjukhuset 1915-1929
Get PDFFöljande studie av en historisk kohort av barn födda 1915-1929 avser att belysa skolframgång för elever med skilda uppväxtförhållanden under den tidigare halvan av detta sekel. Datamaterialet är det äldsta individbaserade skolmaterial som hittills analyserats i Sverige. Syftet är att undersöka det enskilda och sammanlagda inflytandet på medelbetyg till skrivning och räkning av ett antal i huvudsak sociala eller socialt betingade variable
School-level (dis)advantage and adolescents' substance-use behaviours : The role of collective efficacy and norms
No full textDrawing upon ideas stemming from social disorganisation theory, this study explores how structural and social aspects of the school context affect youth substance-use behaviours in terms of smoking, alcohol and/or drug use. A key focus is to investigate the joint effect of school collective efficacy and schools' substance-use norms on students' substance use. Analyses are based on combined information from two independent data collections conducted in 2014 among ninth grade students (n = 5122) and teachers (n = 1105) in 81 senior-level schools in Stockholm. Results from multilevel analyses confirm previous research by suggesting that the proneness to engage in substance use varies depending on the socioeconomic profile of the school. Youth in socioeconomically advantaged schools were more prone to engage in substance use than youth in disadvantaged school settings. Furthermore, collective incentives for exerting social control against substance use seem to be weaker in schools where conventional values towards substance use (anti-substance-use norms) are suppressed.</p
School climate and psychosomatic health: a multilevel analysis
No full textThis study examined the importance of aspects of the school climate for adolescents' psychosomatic health using multilevel modelling. Analyses were based on 18,571 ninth-grade students distributed over 1,026 classes and 284 schools in the greater Stockholm area in 2004 and 2006. Both individual- and contextual-level associations between aspects of the school climate and student health were explored. While most of the aspects of the school climate under study were related to health at the individual level, only 2 of them seemed to convey an additional contextual effect reaching beyond the students who were directly affected. Thus, better health was found in classes where many students reported getting immediate teacher help with their schoolwork, and worse health was found in classes where harassment was more commonly reported. These findings remained when a number of school-contextual characteristics were adjusted for.</p
Status relations in school and their relevance for health in a life course perspective: Findings from the Aberdeen children of the 1950's cohort study
No full textIn the class room a hierarchical structure of social relations typically develops in which the child's position is a marker of the view of the others, i.e. the extent to which he or she is an accepted and valued member of the group. The status distribution in the school class is likely to correspond to differences in personal characteristics, including behaviours and competencies, and to generate a differential distribution of perceived expectations, treatment, resources and emotions. We argue that these phenomena constitute parts in a developmental process which, through mediators such as self-view and subsequent life choices, may affect adult health. The purpose of this paper is to study whether and how peer status is associated with self-reported health in mid-life. Data was derived from a cohort study of individuals born in Aberdeen, Scotland, between 1950 and 1956. We use information about childhood circumstances, including peer status nominations, collected in the early 1960s, and information about adult circumstances derived from a postal questionnaire carried out among more than 6000 individuals in 2001-2003. Multivariate analyses yielded a graded association between peer status and adult health problems in the form of limiting longstanding illness and less than good self-rated health. These associations could not be explained by socioeconomic circumstances or differences in individual behaviour and cognitive score in childhood. It was rather subsequent socioeconomic career that seemed to explain the association found among men. For women, a significant association remained, suggesting alternative pathways or mechanisms.Aberdeen Children of the 1950's study Peer status Middle childhood Adult health Life course Health inequality UK
School-level (dis)advantage and adolescents’ health risk behaviours : the role of school collective efficacy and norms
No full textDrawing upon ideas stemming from Social Disorganization Theory (SDT), this study explores how structural and social aspects of the school context affect youth health risk behaviours (HRB) in terms of smoking, alcohol and/or drug use. A key focus is to investigate the joint effect of school collective efficacy and schools’ substance use norms on students’ HRB. Analyses are based on combined information from two independent data collections conducted in 2014 among ninth grade students (n=5122) and teachers (n=1105) in 81 senior-level schools in Stockholm. Results from multilevel analyses suggested that the proneness to engage in HRB varies depending on the socioeconomic profile of the school. Youth in socioeconomically advantaged schools were more prone to engage in HRB than youth in disadvantaged school settings. Furthermore, collective incentives for exerting social control against HRB seem to be weaker in schools were conventional values towards substance use (anti-substance use norms) are suppressed.</p
Setting the scene for life. Longitudinal studies of early social disadvantage and later life chances : Department of Sociology
No full textThis thesis concerns the long-term life chances of children brought up under various conditions in Sweden during the first half of the twentieth century. The main purpose is to examine the consequences of children’s early family environment for later educational career, and ultimately, for their mortality risk at different stages of the life-course. Two aspects of family structure are focused upon: the birth order of the subject and the mother’s marital status at the time of childbirth. The four studies are all based on the 14,192 babies that were born alive at the Uppsala Academic Hospital during the period 1915–29. Nearly all these children (97.3 percent) have been successfully followed up in parish archives and later through computerised linking to census and death registries. While social class is probably one of the most commonly used indicators of childhood social conditions, the two measures of family structure used here may be assumed to capture additional aspects of childhood social circumstances in ways that differ from that of the social structure position of the parent(s). However, social class and certain biological conditions at the time of birth are also taken into consideration in the analyses as well as several indicators of adult social circumstances.The results showed that third grade school marks worsened steadily with increasing birth order, whereas children who were born outside marriage did not manage significantly worse than those who were born inside marriage. As for achieved education, the chance of having completed upper secondary school declined dramatically with increasing birth order, and was significantly lower for subjects born outside marriage than for those who were born inside marriage. Also with regard to birth order patterns of all cause mortality in four stages of the life-course (infancy, childhood, adulthood and middle to old age) the overall picture pointed towards laterborns being at a disadvantage throughout the studied age intervals. The analyses suggested that adult socio-economic status served as a mediating variable in the association between childhood birth order position and adult mortality.Another potential mediator between conditions in early life and later mortality is ‘marital career’. A recent study found that men who were small at birth were less likely to marry. Based on these findings the authors proposed that the link between marital status and cardiovascular disease could have its origins in intrauterine life. A replication of this study verified the link between fetal growth and subsequent marital status for men, but not for women. However, the results did not support the suggestion that growth rate in utero could explain why unmarried people have higher death rates. The final study examines whether the mother’s marital status at the time of childbirth is associated with her son’s long-term risk of ischaemic heart disease mortality, and whether any such association works via these men’s own marital status in adulthood. The results demonstrated a significant excess IHD mortality among men born outside marriage, which was largely explained by the mortality risk among those men born outside wedlock and who never married being over twice as high as that of the corresponding group of men born to married parents.</p
- …
