The Intergenerational Transmission of Discrimination: Children’s Experiences of Unfair Treatment and Their Mothers’ Health at Midlife

A growing body of research suggests that maternal exposure to discrimination helps to explain racial disparities in children’s health. However, no study has considered if the intergenerational health effects of unfair treatment operate in the opposite direction—from child to mother. To this end, we use data from mother-child pairs in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 to determine whether adolescent and young adult children’s experiences of discrimination influence their mother’s health across midlife. We find that children who report more frequent instances of discrimination have mothers whose self-rated health declines more rapidly between ages 40 and 50 years. Furthermore, racial disparities in exposure to discrimination among children explains almost 10% of the black-white gap but little of the Hispanic-white gap in self-rated health among these mothers. We conclude that the negative health impacts of discrimination are likely to operate in a bidirectional fashion across key family relationships

Queering Aging

In this brief, I outline a “queer” theoretical approach to aging research and present qualitative empirical data to exemplify this approach. My aim is to encourage scholars to blend the bourgeoning work of sexuality studies with the long-standing innovation and rigor of aging studies. Below, I make the explicit case for the “queering” of aging research by way of bringing in gender and sexual minorities (e.g., lesbian, gay, bisexual transgender, queer, or LGBTQ, individuals) into conversations regarding aging and the life course. I use the term “queering” here to show how aging studies can be turned on its head by including LGBTQ populations and perspectives, as doing so provides new vantage points towards understanding the way in which we age across the life course. I note that while an equally important task of merging these two fields would be to draw on the aging literature to inform sexuality research, the focus of the current project is to demonstrate how sexuality studies informs aging in order to bring in an influx of new frameworks for thinking about aging and the life course

Health work in long-term gay, lesbian, and straight couples

textCompared to men, women devote substantially more attention and effort toward enhancing the health of their spouses. Yet, scholars have been unable to explain why this gender gap persists. Women also do more unpaid work in the home than men, and a significant literature explains the origins of this gender gap. In order to better understand why women do more to enhance the health of their spouse, this dissertation maps well-tested theory on unpaid work in the home on the literature on social integration and health to develop the theoretical construct of health work. Health work is defined as the activities and dialogue concerned with enhancing others’ health habits. After developing this theoretical construct, this dissertation turns to a qualitative examination of health work dynamics in 61 straight, gay, and lesbian couples living in the United States (N = 122). Findings reveal two distinct ways that partners work to shape one another’s health habits. Respondents in all couple types describe specialized health work, whereby one partner does health work over the course of the relationship. In straight couples, women perform the bulk of health work and men were the primary recipients of health work. Individuals rely on gendered discourses of difference to explain these unequal health work dynamics. Cooperative health work, whereby both partners perform health work in mutually reinforcing ways, emerges nearly exclusively in gay and lesbian couples. Individuals rely on discourses of similarity to explain why they perform cooperative health work. Findings reveal that health work processes not only depend on gender, but also on the intersection of gender, sexuality, and the gender composition of a couple. Additionally, this dissertation finds that partners not only do health work to promote one another’s healthy habits, but that partners also attempt to promote one another’s unhealthy habits. The implications for the promotion of both healthy and unhealthy habits are discussed.Sociolog

Telling family stories : gay and lesbian couples and the performance of family

This project addresses the experiences of 30 gay and lesbian individuals in longterm relationships. Narratives are conceptualized in this study as tools used by individuals for personal and psychological purposes. My analysis reveals that disclosure narratives told by gay and lesbian individuals functionally privilege the intimate couple's resilience. In doing so, individuals perform family in a counter-hegemonic way by subverting the importance of non-supportive family of origin. I also suggest individuals tell post-disclosure life event narratives to conceptualize changes in their relationships. These narratives further illustrate how the performance of family is contextually constructed. Finally, I argue that although such narratives function to transgress hegemonic family forms, the same narrative constructions concurrently and overtly avoid challenging oppressive structures of family by allowing family member's actions to go uncontested. In this way, these narratives reinscribe meanings of family rather than act as transformative agents that could further destabilize constructions of hegemonic family.Sociolog

Relationship Dynamics around Depression in Gay and Lesbian Couples

Research on intimate relationship dynamics around depression has primarily focused on heterosexual couples. This body of work shows that wives are more likely than husbands to offer support to a depressed spouse. Moreover, when wives are depressed, they are more likely than husbands to try and shield their spouse from the stress of their own depression. Yet, previous research has not examined depression and relationship dynamics in gay and lesbian couples. We analyze in-depth interviews with 26 gay and lesbian couples (N = 52 individuals) in which one or both partners reported depression. We find evidence that dominant gender scripts are both upheld and challenged within gay and lesbian couples, providing important insight into how gender operates in relation to depression within same-sex contexts. Our results indicate that most gay and lesbian partners offer support to a depressed partner, yet lesbian couples tend to follow a unique pattern in that they provide support both as the non-depressed and depressed partner. Support around depression is sometimes viewed as improving the relationship, but if the support is intensive or rejected, it is often viewed as contributing to relationship strain. Support is also sometimes withdrawn by the non-depressed partner because of caregiver exhaustion or the perception that the support is unhelpful. This study points to the importance of considering depression within gay and lesbian relational contexts, revealing new ways support sustains and strains intimate partnerships. We emphasize the usefulness of deploying couple-level approaches to better understand depression in sexual minority populations

Age at first birth and women's midlife health: Cohort and race differences across the 20th century

We test whether the negative association between socially “early” childbearing and women's health in later adulthood, well-established in prior research, differs across distinct historical contexts in the U.S.We further examine whether socioeconomic status explains this shift in the impact of childbearing timing and poor health and whether there are additional differences across racial groups. To address these questions, we pooled data from two nationally representative longitudinal surveys: the National Longitudinal Surveys’ Mature Women (born 1922–1937) and Youth 1979 (born 1957–1964). Together, these NLS cohorts include women who entered adolescence before and after the major economic, political, and demographic changes in the latter half of the twentieth century that gave women access to socioeconomic structures previously limited to White men. These data thus provide a unique opportunity to test cohort and racial differences. Overall, findings suggest that the negative association of young childbearing, which included adolescent childbearing and childbearing in early 20s, with midlife health grew across the two cohorts, with this largely explained by differences in adult educational attainment. This cohort shift appeared especially large for White women compared to Black women. This study highlights the importance of sociopolitical context in shaping the health consequences of major life events like childbearing

Same-sex Couples Devote More Attention to End-of-Life Plans than Heterosexual Couples

Engaging in end-of-life planning enhances the quality of later-life caregiving, health, and death. In this brief, Mieke Beth Thomeer, along with PRC doctoral student Rachel Donnelly, PRC director Debra Umberson, and Corinne Reczek reports on end-of-life planning among same-sex and different-sex married couples. They find that same-sex spouses devote considerable attention to informal planning conversations and formal end-of-life plans while heterosexual spouses report minimal formal or informal planning.Population Research Cente

Planning for Future Care and the End of Life: A Qualitative Analysis of Gay, Lesbian, and Heterosexual Couples

Two key components of end-of-life planning are informal planning for future care and end-of-life preferences and formal end-of-life plans via living wills and legal documents. We build on previous work on the institutionalization of marriage and sexual minority discrimination to theorize the dynamics and strategies of heterosexual, gay, and lesbian married couples in informal and formal end-of-life planning. We use qualitative dyadic methods to analyze in-depth interviews with 45 midlife gay, lesbian, and heterosexual married couples (N = 90 spouses). Findings suggest that same-sex spouses devote intensive time and attention to informal planning conversations and formal end-of-life plans, while heterosexual spouses report minimal formal or informal planning. The primary reasons same-sex spouses give for making end-of-life preparations are related to the absence of legal protections and concerns about family interference. These findings raise questions about future end-of-life planning among gay, lesbian, and heterosexual couples given a rapidly shifting legal landscape. Cite as: Thomeer, Mieke Beth, Rachel Donnelly, Corinne Reczek, & Debra Umberson. (2017). Planning for Future Care and the End of Life: A Qualitative Analysis of Gay, Lesbian, and Heterosexual Couples. Journal of Health and Social Behavior 58(4): 473-487