Jonas Helgertz

Small for gestational age and adulthood risk of disability pension: The contribution of childhood and adulthood conditions

Early exiting from the labor force and into disability pension (DP) represents a major social problem in Sweden and elsewhere. We examined how being asymmetric (A-SGA) or symmetric (S-SGA) small for gestational age predicts transitioning into DP. We analyzed a longitudinal sample of 8125 men and women from the Stockholm Birth Cohort (SBC), born in 1953 and not on DP in 1990. The SBC consists of data from various sources, including self-reported information and data from administrative registers. The follow-up period was from 1991 to 2009. Yearly information on the receipt of DP benefits from register data was operationalized as a dichotomous variable. 13 percent of the sample moved into DP during follow-up. Cox proportional hazards regression was used to examine whether disadvantageous fetal growth--A-SGA and S-SGA--predicted DP. Men and women born A-SGA had a substantially increased hazard of DP. The full model suggested a hazard ratio of 1.68 (CI: 1.11-2.54), only being affected slightly by adulthood conditions. Several childhood conditions were also associated with DP. Such factors, however, mainly affected DP risk through adulthood conditions. The effect of SGA on DP appeared particularly strong among individuals from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds. The evidence presented suggests that being A-SGA influences the risk of DP, independent of childhood and adulthood conditions, and similarly for men and women. Due to A-SGA being rather infrequent, reducing the occurrence of A-SGA would, however, only have a marginal impact on the stock of DP pensioners. For the individual affected, the elevation in the risk of DP was nevertheless substantial. Other childhood conditions exercised a larger influence on the stock of DP recipients, but they mostly operated through adulthood attainment. The importance of socioeconomic resources in childhood for the long term health consequences of SGA is interesting from a policy perspective and warrants further research.

Early life conditions and long-term sickness absence during adulthood – A longitudinal study of 9000 siblings in Sweden

This study examines the influence of health conditions experienced during the individuals first year of life on the incidence of sickness absence during adulthood. Using a sample of approximately 9000 biological siblings from 17 countries of origin and living in Sweden during the time period 1981-1991, sibling fixed effect models are estimated. This approach is combined with the use of an exogenous measurement of early life conditions, operationalized as the infant mortality rate. The link between early life conditions and later life outcomes is examined both with and without intermediary characteristics observed during the individuals childhood and adulthood, aiming for a better understanding regarding to what extent the effect of exposure to an early life insult can be mediated. The results suggest that exposure to worse health conditions during the first year of life is associated with an elevated risk of experiencing sickness absence during adulthood. An increase in infant mortality rate by ten per thousand is associated with a four percentage point higher probability of experiencing sickness absence. Despite the importance of adulthood socioeconomic status on sickness absence propensity, these factors do not mediate the influence from the health conditions experienced during the first year of life, suggesting that the association from early life conditions on sickness absence in adulthood operates as a direct mechanism. The link between early life conditions and sickness absence is only present for children to parents with primary schooling and not for individuals with more educated parents. These findings suggest that families with more abundant resources have the ability to protect their child from exposure to adverse health conditions during early life, or to cancel out the influence from an early life insult.

Relative Deprivation and Sickness Absence in Sweden

Background: A high prevalence of sickness absence in many countries, at a substantial societal cost, underlines the importance to understand its determining mechanisms. This study focuses on the link between relative deprivation and the probability of sickness absence. Methods: 184,000 men and women in Sweden were followed between 1982 and 2001. The sample consists of working individuals between the ages of 19 and 65. The outcome is defined as experiencing more than 14 days of sickness absence during a year. Based on the complete Swedish population, an individual’s degree of relative deprivation is measured through income compared to individuals of the same age, sex, educational level and type. In accounting for the possibility that sickness absence and socioeconomic status are determined by common factors, discrete-time duration models were estimated, accounting for unobserved heterogeneity through random effects. Results: The results confirm that the failure to account for the dynamics of the individual’s career biases the influence from socioeconomic characteristics. Results consistently suggest a major influence from relative deprivation, with a consistently lower risk of sickness absence among the highly educated. Conclusions: Altering individual’s health behavior through education appears more efficient in reducing the reliance on sickness absence, rather than redistributive policies.

Time and Generation: Parents’ Integration and Children’s School Performance in Sweden, 1989–2011

A central element of assimilation theory is that increasing time and number of previous immigrant generations in a host country leaves immigrants and their children more integrated and capable of navigating the host society. However, the underperformance of some immigrant groups in Sweden calls into question this relationship. Additionally, many studies regard intermarriage as an outcome of immigrant integration and rarely investigate whether integration continues after intermarriage. Using population level data from the Swedish interdisciplinary panel on 22 cohorts of ninth-grade students born between 1973 and 1995, we examine the effect of parents’ time in Sweden on their children’s grade point average using family fixed effects. Additionally, we investigate whether this relationship differs between “2.0” and “2.5” generation children. We find, generally, that parents’ time in Sweden increases their children’s educational performance, though some variation by parents’ region of origin exists. This supports the idea that integration experiences in immigrant families can be transmitted across generations. Further, this generally holds for both the 2.0 and 2.5 generation children. This relationship among the 2.5 generation is notable as previous studies using a family-based approach looking at the intergenerational transmission of integration have largely focused on the children of two foreign-born parents.

The Influence of Partner Choice and Country of Origin Characteristics on the Naturalization of Immigrants in Sweden: a Longitudinal Analysis

Using data for the period 1968–2001, this article assesses the influence of partner choice and origin country characteristics on the propensity of immigrants to naturalize in Sweden. Marriage to a foreign-born Swedish citizen increases the naturalization propensity, and its effect increases strongly when the spouse naturalizes during the same year. The analysis suggests that a lower level of civic and political freedom or relative GDP per capita in the individuals country of origin is associated with an elevated probability of naturalization. During the period of study, originating from a country which allows for dual citizenship did not systematically elevate the probability to naturalize; this probability was accentuated, however, if the individual originated from a context characterized by a low degree of civic and political freedom.

Resolved Parental Infertility and Children’s Educational Achievement

Although difficulty conceiving a child has long been a major medical and social preoccupation, it has not been considered as a predictor of long-term outcomes in children ultimately conceived. This is consistent with a broader gap in knowledge regarding the consequences of parental health for educational performance in offspring. Here we address that omission, asking how resolved parental infertility relates to children’s academic achievement. In a sample of all Swedish births between 1988 and 1995, we find that involuntary childlessness prior to either a first or a second birth is associated with lower academic achievement (both test scores and GPA) in children at age 16, even if the period of infertility was prior to a sibling’s birth rather than the child’s own. Our results support a conceptualization of infertility as a cumulative physical and social experience with effects extending well beyond the point at which a child is born, and emphasize the need to better understand how specific parental health conditions constrain children’s educational outcomes.