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The long arm of childhood: The influence of early-life social conditions on men’s mortality

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Demography

Abstract

Increasingly, social scientists are turning to childhood to gain a better understanding of the fundamental social causes of adult mortality. However, evidence of the link between childhood and the mortality of adults is fragmentary, and the intervening mechanisms remain unclear. Drawing on the National Longitudinal Survey of Older Men, our analysis shows that men’s mortality is associated with an array of childhood conditions, including socioeconomic status, family living arrangements, mother’s work status, rural residence, and parents’ nativity. With the exception of parental nativity, socioeconomic-achievement processes in adulthood and lifestyle factors mediated these associations. Education, family income, household wealth, and occupation mediated the influence of socioeconomic status in childhood. Adult lifestyle factors, particularly body mass, mediated the effects of family living arrangements in childhood, mother’s work status, and rural residence. Our findings bring into sharp focus the idea that economic and educational policies that are targeted at children’s well-being are implicitly health policies with effects that reach far into the adult life course.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Population Research Institute and Department of Sociology, Penn State University, USA

    Mark D. Hayward

  2. Department of Sociology, Rice University, USA

    Bridget K. Gorman

  3. Behavioral Sciences, University of Texas School of Public Health, USA

    Bridget K. Gorman

Authors
  1. Mark D. Hayward
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  2. Bridget K. Gorman
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Correspondence to Mark D. Hayward.

Additional information

This research was partially supported by grants from the National Institute on Aging (R01 AG11758 and R55 AG09311) and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (1 R24 HD41025, 5 P30 HD28263, and T32 HD07168).

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Hayward, M.D., Gorman, B.K. The long arm of childhood: The influence of early-life social conditions on men’s mortality. Demography 41, 87–107 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1353/dem.2004.0005

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