Publication type
Journal Article
Authors
Publication date
September 15, 2015
Summary:
This paper illuminates processes of cumulative disadvantage and the generation of health inequalities among mothers. It asks whether adverse circumstances early in the life course cumulate as health-harming biographical patterns across the prime working and family caregiving years. It also explores whether broader institutional contexts may moderate the cumulative effects of micro-level processes. An analysis of data from the British National Child Development Study and the US National Longitudinal Survey of Youth reveals several expected social inequalities in health. In addition, the study uncovers new evidence of cumulative disadvantage: Adversities in early life selected women into long-term employment and marriage biographies that then intensified existing health disparities in mid-life. The analysis also shows that this accumulation of disadvantage was more prominent in the US than in Britain.
Published in
Advances in Life Course Research
Volume and page numbers
Volume: 25 , p.49 -66
DOI
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.alcr.2015.05.004
ISSN
10402608
Subjects
Link
http://repository.essex.ac.uk/id/eprint/15181
Notes
Open Access article
Open Access funded by Economic and Social Research Council
Under a Creative Commons license
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