Three Essays on Social Stratification, Gender and Health

This dissertation consists of three essays on health inequalities that arise from interactions between education, gender, and socio-cultural context: gender disparities in the educational gradients in weight status, the gender-specific relationship between mortality of parents and offspring\u27s educational attainment, and the association between adult literacy and self-rated health in 17 developed countries. Methodologically, I use multinomial regression, quantile regression, Cox proportional hazards models, and country fixed-effect approaches aligning my analytic strategies with the nature and scope of the research questions. The first chapter focuses on whether weight status is socially patterned by the interplay between human capital, economic, and behavioral resources in a highly gendered context of South Korea. The study shows that women who have fewer opportunities to transfer human capital into economic resources may utilize their human capital to obtain symbolic resources, such as physical attractiveness. In contrast, education is not a direct predictor of obesity among men, for whom behaviors promoting healthy weight often conflict with collective ideology at work such as heavy drinking and for whom motivation to obtain professional success is stronger than to obtain symbolic resources. The second essay focuses on intergenerational support from adult offspring to older parents and examines whether the relationship between children\u27s educational attainment and parental mortality varies by the gender of the parent and the gender of the child. The study reveals that children\u27s education is strongly associated with mothers\u27 mortality beyond mothers\u27 own socioeconomic status (SES). The relationship is less pronounced for fathers and is largely explained by the father’s own SES. Furthermore, sons\u27 educational attainment is a stronger predictor of the mortality of parents than daughters\u27 educational attainment. The third chapter examines whether literacy skills predict self-rated health beyond educational attainment in 17 developed countries using a cross-national survey, the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). The study finds that the literacy-related health inequalities are less severe in countries with higher public share of health expenditures that may better address the needs of vulnerable individuals. Curriculum standardization also contributes to reducing health disparities by decreasing variance in skills obtained through education across individuals

Seeing the wood for the trees. Carer related research and knowledge: A scoping review

This NIHR-SSCR funded scoping review provides a comprehensive mapping of what is known about carers and caring, and aims to help inform policy, practice and research in relation to carers. The review was undertaken by searching 10 electronic bibliographic databases, supplemented by additional web searches to identify academic research, grey literature and wider knowledge. The analysis adopts a selective thematic approach covering: carer variables - the characteristics of different types of carer and different caring situations; types of care - the nature of needs of the cared for person and the features of the care situation; the impact of caring – resilience and coping, employment and health; and carer support and needs assessment. The final section highlights key messages identified from the review. It found that caring involves all sections and age groups of the population, with people are likely to experience one or more periods of caregiving over their lifetime. The uniqueness of each caring relationship is also highlighted. In relation to types of carers, knowledge about ‘hard to reach’ groups, such as BAME and LGBT carers, remains sparse. Older carers are also relatively invisible in policy and research terms. It found that much of the knowledge about carers identified in the review relates to their characteristics, their lived experience and the nature of their caregiving, with relatively less being known about the effectiveness of interventions to support them. The report concludes by offering suggestions for policy and practice. An appendix provides a bibliography of the 3,434 items identified in review, classified into 17 types of reference

Long-Term Care and the Housing Market

This paper examines the combined effects of population ageing and changes in long-term care policy on the housing market. Those needing care prefer to receive it at home rather than in institutional settings. Public authorities prefer to provide care in residential settings which are generally lower cost than institutional care. The trend away from institutional provision towards care at home is endorsed by national governments and by the OECD. Nevertheless, as the number requiring care increases, this policy shift will maintain the level of housing demand above what it would otherwise be. It will also have distributional consequences with individuals less likely to reduce their housing equity to pay for institutional care, which in turn will increase the value of their bequests. Empirical analysis using the UK Family Resources Survey and the British Household Panel Survey shows that household formation effects involving those requiring long-term care are relatively weak and unlikely to significantly offset the effects of this policy shift on the housing market and on the distribution of wealth

The importance of "scaffolding" in clinical approach to deafness across the lifespan

Throughout the present work of thesis, the concept of scaffolding will be used as a fil rouge through the chapters. What I mean for “scaffolding approach”, therefore, is an integrated and multidisciplinary clinical and research methodology to hearing impairments that could take into account persons as a whole; an approach that needs to be continuously adapted and harmonized with the individuals, pursuant to their progress, their limits and resources, in consideration of their audiological, cognitive, emotional, personal, and social characteristics. The following studies of our research group will be presented: A study (2020) designed to assess the effects of parent training (PT) on enhancing children’s communication development (chapter two); Two studies of our research group (2016; 2020) concerning variables influencing comprehension of emotions and nuclear executive functions in deaf children with cochlear implant (chapter three and chapter four) In chapter five a presentation and description of our Mind-Active Communication program, main topics and aims, multidisciplinary organizations of group and individual sessions with a description of used materials and methodology is given. Finally, a preliminary evaluation to explore the use of this multidisciplinary rehabilitative program on quality of life, psychological wellbeing, and hearing abilities in a sample of cochlear implanted elderly persons is reported

Intergenerational solidarity, proximity to parents when moving to independence, and returns to the parental home

Research on leaving home among young adults has mainly focused on the timing of departures rather than the distance that young adults move when they leave the parental home and establish independent households. We draw on data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) Transition to Adulthood Supplement (TAS) (2005–2015) and the Geospatial Match Files to examine the relationship between intergenerational solidarity and the distance of young adults' first independent household. We also examine whether intergenerational proximity is associated with the likelihood of returning home. The results indicate that young adults from high SES families tend to move farther, while those who have children and a close relationship with their mothers tend to stay nearby. Living far from the parental home deters home returning only for young adults who do not have a close relationship with their mothers

A Review of Research on Aging Families: Emerging Issues

Against the background of the demographic shifts of population aging, increased immigration, and growing ethno‐cultural diversity in Canada, it is important that we gain a better understanding of the needs of aging families. To date, family gerontologists have begun producing research on aging families to better understand how their needs can be met. In order to assess the state of the literature on aging families, we conducted a literature search (2009‐ 2014) of eleven top, peer‐reviewed journals. This literature was then assessed, revealing five prevalent themes: (1) structural diversity in aging families, (2) family relationships in later life, (3) caregiving and intergenerational transfers, (4) living arrangements of aging families, and (5) partnerships in later life. This article synthesizes the research of each theme and each of their subsequent sub‐themes. Lastly, the article concludes with some suggestions for future directions in research which were revealed through the literature review

Familial Caregiving and Timing of Retirement: A Gendered Cohort Analysis

Retirement timing has been linked to a host of outcomes for individuals, families, and communities. Well-known predictors of retirement timing include health, wealth, and cognitive capacity; a few studies have also linked gender and family caregiving to retirement timing. In the present study, data from the Health and Retirement Study were used to create profiles of pre-retirement family caregiving (operationalized as time and financial transfers to participants\u27 aging parents and adult children). These profiles, as well as participant gender and cohort, were used to predict later retirement timing. All profiles retired, on average, earlier than their full eligibility for Social Security benefits. The Eldercare profile, which was characterized by high levels of time and financial transfers to aging parents, retired the earliest. On average, women retired earlier than men. Members of the War Babies cohort (b. 1941-1947) retired earlier than members of the HRS cohort (b. 1931-1941). There was not a significant interaction between caregiving profile and gender, revealing that when men enacted female-typical caregiving roles, their retirement timing resembled women\u27s. Implications for individual retirement decision-making and policy are discussed