Union History and Midlife Health

摘要 已婚者的发病率和死亡率大大低于已婚者， 未婚的人。然而，婚姻可能只是个人生命历程中的一个阶段， 婚姻的好处可能取决于结婚年龄和持续时间。此外，婚前同居和 婚后的婚姻状况也可能有助于以后的健康状况。最近的工作已经从 研究按婚姻状况或过渡期分列的健康差异，重点关注婚姻史和健康状况。 然而，工会历史的措施并没有捕捉到在生命过程中展现的累积效应， 忽视了早期的结合经验如何影响后来的结合对健康的影响。在本申请中， 我们提出了一个生命历程的观点，并强调了工会的历史（包括时间，持续时间和顺序）， 单身、结婚、同居、离婚和/或守寡）对健康的影响 中年的结果。1979年全国青年纵向调查（NLSY 79） 代表了一个里程碑，所有受访者都达到了50岁，并回答了设计的健康问题， 对于那个年龄。我们应用序列分析来捕获工会历史的完整结构。我们的做法是 创新之处在于，我们通过对时间、持续时间和 个体在成年早期的结合事件的顺序，这与生命历程如何相对应， 经验可能对中年健康产生累积影响。我们调查了性别、种族/民族以及 社会阶层塑造工会历史轨迹，工会历史轨迹如何影响中年健康结果， 结合历史轨迹和中年健康结果之间的关系如何因性别而异， 种族/民族和社会阶级。这项工作将产生的知识如何日益复杂的工会历史 这两个轨迹导致美国不同人群之间的健康差距不断扩大。

Abstract Married individuals have substantially lower risks of morbidity and mortality and enjoy better health than unmarried people. Yet marriage may represent only one stage over an individual’s life course, and health benefits of marriage may depend on marital age and duration. Furthermore, cohabitation before marriage and union status after marriage may also contribute to health outcomes later in life. Recent work has moved from research on health disparities by marital status or transition to focus its attention on union history and health. However, measures of union history do not capture cumulative effects that unfold over the life course and neglect how earlier union experiences may shape the health consequences of later unions. In this application, we propose a life course perspective and posit that union history (including timing, duration, and sequencing of singlehood, marriage, cohabitation, dissolution, and/or widowhood) in earlier adult life influences health outcomes in midlife. The data from the 2016 wave of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) represent a milestone in which all respondents had reached age 50 and answered health questions designed for that age. We apply sequence analysis to capture the complete structure of union history. Our approach is innovative in that we identify prototypical union history trajectories through measures of timing, duration, and sequencing of individuals’ union events in earlier adult life, which correspond well with how life course experiences may have cumulative effects on midlife health. We investigate how gender, race/ethnicity, and social class shape union history trajectory, how union history trajectory influences midlife health outcomes, and how the relationships between union history trajectory and midlife health outcomes vary by gender, race/ethnicity, and social class. This work will yield knowledge of how increasingly complex union history trajectories contribute to growing health disparities among America’s diverse populations.