Maternal Age at First Birth and Parental Support: Evidence From the UK Millennium Cohort Study

Using nationally representative data from the UK Millennium Cohort Study (n = 7396), we investigate whether the mother’s age at first birth is associated with the level of support she receives from her parents around the time of birth. We apply latent class analysis to construct a summary measure of five dimensions of parental support (contact with the mother, contact with the father, childcare, monetary transfers and financial support for buying essentials). The results show that parental support is negatively associated with maternal age at first birth, with older mothers being less likely than younger mothers to receive parental support. Adjustment for maternal socio-demographic characteristics and parental age partially attenuates the association. Given that parental support is positively associated with adult children’s well-being, labour force participation, and fertility the results suggest that integrating parental support into work investigating the causes and consequences of the timing of first births has the potential to enrich and expand our understanding of the costs and benefits of delaying childbearing towards older parental ages

Well-being of children born after medically assisted reproduction

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Mind the gap: the health advantages that accompany parental marriage vary by maternal nativity

Using data from the UK Millennium Cohort Study (MCS), we examine whether and how the health benefits of having two biological parents in a continuous marital relationship vary by maternal nativity and ethnicity, comparing UK-born White mothers with: (1) White mothers born in wealthy countries; (2) ethnic minority mothers from South Asia; and (3) ethnic minority mothers born in Africa. Making novel use of classification and regression tree (CART) methods, we examine whether marital status is a uniform marker of economic advantage or better health-related behaviours across the four maternal nativity and ethnic groups. The findings, which indicate that the health-related advantages associated with parental marriage are not uniform across the four nativity and ethnic groups, have implications for future research on family gaps in well-being and the socio-economic determinants of health

Loneliness during the Pregnancy-Seeking Process: Exploring the Role of Medically Assisted Reproduction

This study explores whether undergoing medically assisted reproduction (MAR) is associated with experiencing loneliness and whether this association varies by gender and having a live birth. Using two waves of the Generations and Gender Survey (n = 2,725) from countries in Central and Eastern Europe, we estimate the changes in levels of emotional and social loneliness among pregnancy seekers in heterosexual relationships and test if they vary by the mode of conception while controlling for individual sociodemographic characteristics. Individuals who underwent MAR experienced increased levels of social loneliness compared to individuals who were trying to conceive spontaneously. This association is entirely driven by respondents who did not have a live birth between the two observation periods, while the results did not differ by gender. No differences emerged in emotional loneliness. Our findings suggest that increased social loneliness during the MAR process might be attributable to infertility-related stress and stigma

Patterns of help and care by adult only children and children with siblings

Adult children with siblings can share caring for older parents but adult only children face this responsibility alone. Given increased longevity and reliance on informal care-giving, as well as an increase in one-child families, there is a need to investigate only children's care-giving further. Using data from three large-scale British birth cohorts, this paper investigates patterns of parent-care, care intensity and wellbeing at ages 38 and 42 (N = 17,255, N = 16,703; born 1970), 50 and 55 (N = 12,775, N = 11,339; born 1958) and 63 (N = 2,364; born 1946), how sibling composition intersects with gender in relation to care-giving and whether different care-giving patterns are associated with wellbeing. Only children are more likely to provide parent-care and the pattern is consistent with an interpretation that differences by sibling status might increase with age. Provision is gendered, and the sibling group composition matters for involvement. Although care-giving is related to wellbeing, we found no evidence that this differs between only children and those with siblings. The literature on only children has hitherto focused largely on childhood, suggesting that on some outcomes they benefit from a concentration of parental resources. Our results suggest that in middle adulthood parental care needs may instead be concentrated for the only child without the ‘resource’ of siblings. This indicates a need to develop further our understanding of this growing demographic subgroup

Childbearing postponement and child wellbeing in the U.K: reconciling and integrating different perspectives

The demographic literature has tended to interpret the postponement of childbearing, experienced in developed countries over the past three decades, as beneficial for families. As women who postpone their first birth accumulate resources before they become mothers, an increasing maternal age at first birth is expected to be positively associated with children’s wellbeing. Existing evidence is only partially able to support these arguments, primarily for two reasons. Firstly, the demographic literature has been mainly preoccupied with the social aspects of postponement, ignoring that, as showed by the medical literature, older childbearing may involve health complications and result in worse outcomes for children. Indeed, the link between postponement and child wellbeing may depend on how late the birth occurs. Secondly, the “weathering” hypothesis literature argues that the link between maternal age and child wellbeing is heterogeneous for population subgroups. Ethnic minority women may have fewer opportunities to acquire resources even if they postpone childbearing. Because of the disadvantage and racism they endure, they may experience a more rapid deterioration of their health, which implies that their children’s wellbeing might worsen, rather than improve, with increasing maternal age at birth. The original contribution to knowledge of this thesis is that of investigating the way childbearing postponement is associated with family and child wellbeing by integrating and reconciling different perspectives on maternal age, which have so far been developed and applied relatively independently. The research focuses on the U.K. context, on first births and compares (children born to) Black and White mothers. The results, on average, support the arguments of the demographic literature as first born children of older mothers (30+) fare significantly better than children of younger mothers, although, consistent with the medical literature, the benefits cease to accumulate at particularly advanced maternal ages. However, consistent with the “weathering” hypothesis literature, the results suggest that when analysed separately for Black and White mothers, the association between maternal age and child wellbeing varies across these groups. Indeed, Black/White gaps in child low birth weight widen with increasing maternal age at first birth. The results also reveal that when Black mothers delay childbearing to older ages, they do not experience the same accumulation of resources as White mothers do, suggesting that childbearing postponement may reflect qualitatively different processes for these groups

Child outcomes after parental separation : variations by contact and court involvement

This report presents findings from the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS). It describes variations in contact between children and non-resident parents, and use of court for settling contact or financial arrangements. The report also explores gaps in different child outcomes by their parents’ marital status and whether post-separation contact with non-resident parents is associated with children’s outcomes at age 11

How are children of older mothers doing? Evidence from the United Kingdom

Childbearing has been increasingly delayed in Western countries. As older mothers are likely to be advantaged, the demographic literature has tended to view this demographic trend as potentially beneficial for child well-being. Conversely, less attention has been given to medical studies showing that giving birth at advanced ages is associated with health risks for children. This paper uses data from the Millennium Cohort Study (U.K.), OLS and logistic regression models to compare cognitive and behavioural outcomes, and obesity at age 5 for first born children by maternal age at first birth. On one side, the findings suggest that giving birth to the first child at ages 30-39, compared to ages 23-29, is positively associated with children’s cognitive and behavioural outcomes and not associated with obesity. On the other, delaying first births to ages 40 and above is not associated with children’s cognitive and behavioural outcomes and is associated with increased risk of obesity. Although the results are unable to support the argument that this occurs because of the health risks associated with giving birth at advanced maternal ages, they suggest that there is need to more closely investigate the potential trade-offs involved when births are delayed towards older maternal ages

Advantages of later motherhood

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Health outcomes of only children across the life course : an investigation using Swedish register data

This work was partially supported by the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland [RIG008234] awarded to Katherine Keenan and by the Economic and Social Research Council [grant number ES/S002103/1] to Alice Goisis. This work was also supported by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet) via the Swedish Initiative for Research on Microdata in the Social and Medical Sciences (SIMSAM), grant 340-2013-5164.Only children (with no full biological siblings) are a growing subgroup in many high-income settings. Previous studies have largely focused on the short-term developmental outcomes of only children, but there is limited evidence on their health outcomes. Using Swedish population register data for cohorts born 1940–75, we compare the health of only children with that of children from multi-child sibling groups, taking into account birth order, family size, and presence of half-siblings. Only children showed lower height and fitness scores, were more likely to be overweight/obese in late adolescence, and experienced higher later-life mortality than those with one or two siblings. However, only children without half-siblings were consistently healthier than those with half-siblings, suggesting that parental disruption confers additional disadvantages. The health disadvantage was attenuated but not fully explained by adjustment for parental characteristics and after using within-family maternal cousin comparison designs.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe