Changing fortunes? Aspiration and realisation for looked after young people’s post-compulsory educational pathways in England

Abstract The post-compulsory educational pathways of young people who have spent some or all of their childhoods in local authority care varied. They are seven times less likely to attend university than their age contemporaries not in care. Even those with some qualifications at age 16 face difficulties in progression. Based on the English data from a European study of young people with a public care background, this paper sets out six pathways and investigates whether and how young people’s aspirations and goals for the short term were realised. The paper argues that among this group of young people who were in local authority care the dominant positioning is of self-responsibility for achieving plans, in line with individualist thinking. But such positioning is an overly optimistic picture; many barriers to the realisation of plans were also evident.

Sex of older siblings and stress resilience

The aim was to investigate whether older siblings are associated with development of stress resilience in adolescence and if there are differences by sex of siblings. The study used a Swedish register-based cohort of men (n=664 603) born between 1970 and 1992 who undertook military conscription assessments in adolescence that included a measure of stress resilience: associations were assessed using multinomial logistic regression. Adjusted relative risk ratios (95% confidence intervals) for low stress resilience (n=136 746) compared with high (n=142 581) are 1.33 (1.30, 1.35), 1.65 (1.59, 1.71) and 2.36 (2.18, 2.54) for one, two and three or more male older siblings, compared with none. Equivalent values for female older siblings do not have overlapping confidence intervals with males and are 1.19 (1.17, 1.21), 1.46 (1.40, 1.51) and 1.87 (1.73, 2.03). When the individual male and female siblings are compared directly (one male sibling compared with one female sibling, etc.) and after adjustment, including for cognitive function, there is a statistically significant (p<0.005) greater risk for low stress resilience associated with male siblings. Older male siblings may have greater adverse implications for psychological development, perhaps due to greater demands on familial resources or inter-sibling interactions

Chronic illness and mental strain: The longitudinal role of partners with time since illness onset

Chronic conditions are associated with large personal, familial and social costs, and have deleterious effects on individuals’ mental health. Drawing on the stress process model, we theorise and test how the presence of a partner moderates the extent to which living with a chronic condition affects mental health, and whether any protective effects change with time since illness onset, or differ between men and women. Our empirical analyses rely on nationally representative, panel data for Australia (n?180,000 observations) and panel regression models. Being in a partnership, particularly in a marriage, is associated with better mental health amongst all individuals, but more so amongst the chronically ill. This advantage remains beyond the year of illness onset, and is of a comparable magnitude for men and women. These findings bear important implications for mental health in modern societies experiencing rapid population ageing, a rising prevalence of chronic illness, and declining marriage rates

Generations and Gender Survey study profile

The Generations and Gender Survey (GGS) is a panel study on families, life course trajectories and gender relations. The GGS is part of the Generations and Gender Programme (GGP), a unique research infrastructure providing open access data to registered researchers. We will be focusing on the GGS waves that were already collected. With large samples per country, the GGS microdata provides researchers with a key resource to examine changes in family life, inter-generational and gender relations. The analysis of these trends is at the core of the research produced in several social science disciplines and the GGS data users have extensively used it to better understand topics such as the transition to adulthood, partnership formation and dissolution, fertility, gender roles and caring responsibilities. In the first part of this study profile, we focus on the design features of the GGS (data collection and adjustment, panel maintenance, and coverage) and subsequently we provide an overview of the organisational setup and outputs of the GGP. In the last part we reflect on the opportunities and challenges ahead of the next round of data collection

Examining life course trajectories of lesbian, gay and bisexual people in England – exploring convergence and divergence among a heterogeneous population of older people

Because of limitations in collecting sexuality data, there are very few studies that quantitatively explore the life courses of lesbian, gay, bisexual (LGB) individuals. Likewise it is rare that normative patterns of life course trajectories are assessed in terms of their applicability to LGB individuals. We review the current literature on LGB life course trajectories and discuss potential reasons for gaps in the literature. We explore approaches for defining LGB status. We use data from a cohort of people aged 50 and over (English Longitudinal Study of Ageing) to explore the tempo and occurrences of transitions to adulthood and to older age, and establish some of the differences based on sexual orientation. We examine the connecting health behaviours and life course turning points that may explain some of the differences described above. We show that while the first quartile of transitions to adulthood are experienced fairly uniformly by sexual orientation, differences open up thereafter. LGB people’s life course trajectories are marked by different patterns of care, with LGB people less likely to provide care in the form of parenthood, but potentially more likely to provide care earlier to close friends or relatives. Analyses of connecting events suggest that LGB life course trajectories may be marred by higher levels of volatility, including higher risk financial hardship. Caveats to these results are outlined in full in the paper

Timing and duration of social assistance receipt during childhood on early adult outcomes

The experience of economic disadvantage during childhood is a major predictor of a variety of negative outcomes during early adulthood. This study provides evidence on the significance of timing of social assistance receipt during childhood on children’s later adjustment problems. The study uses data from the 1987 Finnish Birth Cohort (FBC), which covered all children born in Finland in 1987 (N=59476) and followed them until the age of 25. The data were gathered from Finnish registers that cover health and sociodemographic data for cohort members and their parents. Altogether 11,062 female (38.1%) and 11,537 male (37.9%) cohort members had parents who had received social assistance. Social assistance receipt during childhood increased the risk for all measured adjustment problems: early school leaving (OR 2.37), conviction (OR 1.87), teenage pregnancy (OR 1.89) and mental disorders (OR 1.68) even when adjusting for several social background variables. Economic disadvantage during early childhood (0–2 years) was found to associate with highest risk; all measured adjustment problems compared to exposure to poverty later in childhood. The study concludes that early childhood is a period in which children acquire cognitive and social competencies that form the basis for future wellbeing. Our analysis, based on a total nation-wide birth cohort, indicates that economic disadvantage in early childhood poses the most significant risk for later adjustment problems

Volume 9, No 3

Full issue of Longitudinal and Life Course Studies, Volume 9, no 3

MatCH (Mothers and their Children’s Health) Profile: offspring of the 1973-78 cohort of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health

MatCH (Mothers and their Children’s Health) is a nationwide Australian study to investigate the links between the history of health, wellbeing and living conditions of mothers and the health and development of their children. MatCH builds on the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health (ALSWH), which began in 1996 and has surveyed more than 58,000 women in four nationally representative age cohorts. MatCH focuses on the three youngest offspring of the cohort of ALSWH participants randomly sampled from all women in Australia born in 1973–78 (N=5780 children of N=3039 mothers). These women, who had completed up to seven postal or online surveys since 1996, were invited in 2016–17 to complete surveys about the health and development of their three youngest children aged under 13. The mothers reported on their children’s health conditions and symptoms, diet, anthropometric measures, childcare, screen time, physical activity, temperament, behaviour, language development, motor development and health service utilisation, as well as household and environmental factors. These data are being linked with each child’s records from official sources including the Australian Early Development Census (collected at age five to six), the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (collected at age eight, 10, 12 and 14) and other external datasets. MatCH will combine 20 years of maternal data with all the information on her children, taking into account the family setting. MatCH offers an unprecedented opportunity to advance our understanding of the relationship between maternal health and wellbeing and child health and development.

Voicing young and older adult care-leavers in Belgium: How the experience of being in care shapes narratives of the self

In this contribution results of a qualitative study on adult care leavers in Flanders (Belgium) are discussed. Life history interviews with 38 adult care leavers (21-66 years) were conducted to shed light on how a history of being in residential/foster care may impact on further lives. In this article focus is on the identity (and identity changes) of care leavers to explore the process of psychological transition to adulthood.The process of psychological transition is characterised by identity changes; care leavers move away from a care-identity to another, more conventional identity. The narratives clearly evidence the existence of a care-identity, characterised by a perception of a decrease/loss of selfhood. For most care leavers, identification with the group of institutionalised youth and stigmatization leaves a negative imprint on their self-image. However, as care leavers age, new and more conventional identities are developed, making the negative imprint of the care-identity diminish over time. While the care-identity probably will not completely disappear it will be pushed more to the background as it may co-exist with new and conventional identities.In order to initiate/complete the psychological transition to adulthood, the processing of traumatic events is crucial. Also, parenthood and a job in the social care sector are important turning points instigating psychological transition. Remarkably, the process of psychological transition is often prompted later in adulthood, underscoring the importance of a longitudinal perspective both in research and policy (aftercare)

Contexts and controversy

The research reported in this issue of the journal deals with a range of aspects of the life course, sometimes controversial. The topics concern moving home in childhood, having a child as a teenager and how life transitions vary by disability in adolescence and by sexuality reported in later life. Taken together, these contributions bring out the need to appreciate their contrasting contexts