Margot I. Jackson

Understanding Links Between Adolescent Health and Educational Attainment

The educational and economic consequences of poor health during childhood and adolescence have become increasingly clear, with a resurgence of evidence leading researchers to reconsider the potentially significant contribution of early-life health to population welfare both within and across generations. Meaningful relationships between early-life health and educational attainment raise important questions about how health may influence educational success in young adulthood and beyond, as well as for whom its influence is strongest. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, I examine how adolescentś health and social status act together to create educational disparities in young adulthood, focusing on two questions in particular. First, does the link between adolescent health and educational attainment vary across socioeconomic and racial/ethnic groups? Second, what academic factors explain the connection between adolescent health and educational attainment? The findings suggest that poorer health in adolescence is strongly negatively related to educational attainment, net of both observed confounders and unobserved, time-invariant characteristics within households. The reduction in attainment is particularly large for non-Hispanic white adolescents, suggesting that the negative educational consequences of poor health are not limited to only the most socially disadvantaged adolescents. Finally, I find that the link between adolescent health and educational attainment is explained by academic factors related to educational participation and, most importantly, academic performance, rather than by reduced educational expectations. These findings add complexity to our understanding of how the educational consequences of poor health apply across the social hierarchy, as well as why poor health may lead adolescents to complete less schooling.

Early Childhood WIC Participation, Cognitive Development and Academic Achievement

For the 22% of American children who live below the federal poverty line, and the additional 23% who live below twice that level, nutritional policy is part of the safety net against hunger and its negative effects on childrens development. The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) provides steadily available food from the food groups essential for physical and cognitive development. The effects of WIC on dietary quality among participating women and children are strong and positive. Furthermore, there is a strong influence of nutrition on cognitive development and socioeconomic inequality. Yet, research on the non-health effects of U.S. child nutritional policy is scarce, despite the ultimate goal of health policies directed at children-to enable productive functioning across multiple social institutions over the life course. Using two nationally representative, longitudinal surveys of children-the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort (ECLS-B) and the Child Development Supplement (CDS) of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics-I examine how prenatal and early childhood exposure to WIC is associated in the short-term with cognitive development, and in the longer-term with reading and math learning. Results show that early WIC participation is associated with both cognitive and academic benefits. These findings suggest that WIC meaningfully contributes to childrens educational prospects.

A Life Course Perspective on Child Health, Cognition and Occupational Skill Qualifications in Adulthood: Evidence from a British Cohort

Existing research rarely examines the social consequences of poor childhood health from a longitudinal perspective. Using data from the British National Child Development Study, I follow a cohort from before birth through middle age to examine whether childrens health limitations before and during the educational process predict occupational skill in mid-adulthood, and whether negative consequences are strongest for children in persistently poor health. I also examine whether differences in achievement explain the observed associations, and at what point during the schooling process performance begins to play a large explanatory role. Poor health is strongly negatively related to qualifications in adulthood, particularly for children in persistently poor health. These associations are largely explained by differences in performance early in childrens academic careers, before the first important transition point. The relationship between prenatal maternal smoking and mid-adulthood qualifications is more persistent. This article demonstrates that a static conceptualization of childhood health is inadequate to fully understand the dynamic process through which social status and health over the course of childhood have long-run consequences for the adult life course.

Cumulative Inequality in Child Health and Academic Achievement

Our understanding of health and social stratification can be enriched by testing tenets of cumulative inequality theory that emphasize how the accumulation of inequality is dependent on the developmental stage being considered, the duration and stability of poor health, and the family resources available to children. I analyze longitudinal data from the British National Child Development Study (N = 9,252) to ask: (1) if child health is a source of cumulative inequality in academic achievement, (2) whether this relationship depends on the timing and duration of poor health, and (3) whether trajectories are sensitive to levels of family capital. The results suggest that the relationship between health and academic achievement emerges very early in life and persists and that whether we observe shrinking or widening inequality as children age depends on when we measure their health and whether children have access to compensatory resources.

The relationship between lifetime health trajectories and socioeconomic attainment in middle age

A large literature demonstrates the direct and indirect influence of health on socioeconomic attainment, and reveals the ways in which health and socioeconomic background simultaneously and dynamically affect opportunities for attainment and mobility. Despite an increasing understanding of the effects of health on social processes, research to date remains limited in its conceptualization and measurement of the temporal dimensions of health, especially in the presence of socioeconomic circumstances that covary with health over time. Guided by life course theory, we use data from the British National Child Development Study, an ongoing panel study of a cohort born in 1958, to examine the association between lifetime health trajectories and socioeconomic attainment in middle age. We apply finite mixture modeling to identify distinct trajectories of health that simultaneously account for timing, duration and stability. Moreover, we employ propensity score weighting models to account for the presence of time-varying socioeconomic factors in estimating the impact of health trajectories. We find that, when poor health is limited to the childhood years, the disadvantage in socioeconomic attainment relative to being continuously healthy is either insignificant or largely explained by time-varying socioeconomic confounders. The socioeconomic impact of continuously deteriorating health over the life course is more persistent, however. Our results suggest that accounting for the timing, duration and stability of poor health throughout both childhood and adulthood is important for understanding how health works to produce social stratification. In addition, the findings highlight the importance of distinguishing between confounding and mediating effects of time-varying socioeconomic circumstances.

Nativity Differences in Mothers’ Health Behaviors: A Cross-National and Longitudinal Lens

Nativity differences in birth outcomes in the United States are well documented, with more favorable outcomes among children of foreign-born parents than those of native-born parents. Using longitudinal data on mothers from the United States Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N ~ 4,000) and the United Kingdom Millennium Cohort Study (N ~ 15,000), the authors provide a comparative and longitudinal perspective on nativity differences in mothers’ health behaviors. First, the authors ask whether healthier behaviors observed among Hispanic immigrants in the United States extend to foreign-born mothers in the United Kingdom, including South Asian, black African and Caribbean, and East Asian immigrants. Second, the authors consider the persistence of differences throughout early childhood. The findings demonstrate healthier behaviors among foreign-born mothers in both the United States and the United Kingdom, including both socioeconomically disadvantaged and advantaged mothers. These differences are stable over early childhood, suggesting a “universality” of healthier behaviors among foreign-born mothers, spanning racial/ethnic and socioeconomic groups, time, and two different policy contexts.

Maternal Education, Changing Family Circumstances, and Children’s Skill Development in the United States and UK

Maternal education influences families’ socioeconomic status. It is strongly associated with children’s cognitive development and a key predictor of other resources within the family that strongly predict children’s well-being: economic insecurity, family structure, and maternal depression. Most studies examine the effects of these variables in isolation at particular points in time, and very little research examines whether findings observed among children in the United States can be generalized to children of a similar age in other countries. We use latent class analysis and data from two nationally representative birth cohort studies that follow children from birth to age five to answer two questions: (1) How do children’s family circumstances evolve throughout early childhood? and (2) To what extent do these trajectories account for differences in children’s cognitive development? Cross-national analysis reveals a good deal of similarity between the United States and UK in patterns of family life during early childhood, and in the degree to which those patterns contribute to educational inequality.

The Simultaneous Effects of Socioeconomic Disadvantage and Child Health on Children’s Cognitive Development

Family socioeconomic status (SES) and child health are so strongly related that scholars have speculated child health to be an important pathway through which a cycle of poverty is reproduced across generations. Despite increasing recognition that SES and health work reciprocally and dynamically over the life course to produce inequality, research has yet to address how these two pathways simultaneously shape children’s development. Using longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study and marginal structural models, we ask three questions: (1) how does the reciprocal relationship between socioeconomic disadvantage and child health affect estimates of each circumstance on children’s cognitive development?; (2) how do their respective effects vary with age?; and (3) do family SES and child health have differential effects on cognitive development across population subgroups? The results show that the negative effects of socioeconomic disadvantage and poor health are insensitive to their reciprocal relationships over time. We find divergent effects of socioeconomic disadvantage and poor health on children’s cognitive trajectories, with a widening pattern for family SES effects and a leveling-off pattern for child health effects. Finally, the effects of socioeconomic disadvantage are similar across all racial/ethnic groups, while the effects of child health are largely driven by white children. We discuss theoretical and policy implications of these findings for future research.