IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v74y2012i5p734-743.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Socioeconomic pathways to depressive symptoms in adulthood: Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979

Author

Listed:
  • Quesnel-Vallée, Amélie
  • Taylor, Miles

Abstract

The existence of a direct effect of early socioeconomic position (SEP) on adult mental health outcomes net of adult SEP is still debated. This question demands the explicit modeling of pathways linking early SEP to adult SEP and mental health. In light of this background, we pursue two objectives in this study. First, we examine whether depressive symptoms in adulthood can be fit in a trajectory featuring both an intercept, or baseline range of depressive symptoms that varied between individuals, and a slope describing the average evolution of depressive symptoms over the years. Second, we estimate the direct and indirect pathways linking early SEP, respondents' education and adult household income, with a particular focus on whether early SEP retains a significant direct effect on the trajectory of depressive symptoms once adult SEP is entered into the pathway model. Drawing from 29 years of cohort data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, a survey that has been following a national probability sample of American civilian and military youth (Zagorsky and White, 1999), we used structural equation models to estimate the pathways between parents' education, respondent's education, and latent growth curves of household income and depressive symptoms. We found that the effect of parents' education was entirely mediated by respondent's education. In turn, the effect of respondent's education was largely mediated by household income. In conclusion, our findings showed that the socioeconomic attainment process that is rooted in parents' education and leads to respondent's education and then to household income is a crucial pathway for adult mental health. These results suggest that increasing educational opportunities may be an effective policy to break the intergenerational transmission of low socioeconomic status and poor mental health.

Suggested Citation

  • Quesnel-Vallée, Amélie & Taylor, Miles, 2012. "Socioeconomic pathways to depressive symptoms in adulthood: Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(5), pages 734-743.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:74:y:2012:i:5:p:734-743
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.10.038
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953611006940
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.10.038?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert Evans, 2002. "Interpreting and Addressing Inequalities in Health: From Black to Acheson to Blair to . . . ?," Monograph 000477, Office of Health Economics.
    2. Mark Hayward & Bridget Gorman, 2004. "The long arm of childhood: The influence of early-life social conditions on men’s mortality," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 41(1), pages 87-107, February.
    3. Laura D. Kubzansky & Lisa F. Berkman & Teresa E. Seeman, 2000. "Social Conditions and Distress in Elderly Persons," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 55(4), pages 238-246.
    4. Power, C. & Stansfeld, S. A. & Matthews, S. & Manor, O. & Hope, S., 2002. "Childhood and adulthood risk factors for socio-economic differentials in psychological distress: evidence from the 1958 British birth cohort," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 55(11), pages 1989-2004, December.
    5. Graham, Hilary, 2002. "Building an inter-disciplinary science of health inequalities: the example of lifecourse research," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 55(11), pages 2005-2016, December.
    6. Thomas MaCurdy & Thomas Mroz & R. Mark Gritz, 1998. "An Evaluation of the National Longitudinal Survey on Youth," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 33(2), pages 345-436.
    7. Miles G. Taylor & Scott M. Lynch, 2004. "Trajectories of Impairment, Social Support, and Depressive Symptoms in Later Life," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 59(4), pages 238-246.
    8. Ye Luo & Linda J. Waite, 2005. "The Impact of Childhood and Adult SES on Physical, Mental, and Cognitive Well-Being in Later Life," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 60(2), pages 93-101.
    9. Kasen, S. & Cohen, P. & Chen, H. & Castille, D., 2003. "Depression in Adult Women: Age Changes and Cohort Effects," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 93(12), pages 2061-2066.
    10. Elovainio, Marko & Kivimäki, Mika & Ek, Ellen & Vahtera, Jussi & Honkonen, Teija & Taanila, Anja & Veijola, Juha & Järvelin, Marjo-Riitta, 2007. "The effect of pre-employment factors on job control, job strain and psychological distress: A 31-year longitudinal study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 187-199, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Meneton, Pierre & Hoertel, Nicolas & Wiernik, Emmanuel & Lemogne, Cédric & Ribet, Céline & Bonenfant, Sébastien & Ménard, Joël & Goldberg, Marcel & Zins, Marie, 2018. "Work environment mediates a large part of social inequalities in the incidence of several common cardiovascular risk factors: Findings from the Gazel cohort," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 216(C), pages 59-66.
    2. McFarland, Michael J. & Wagner, Brandon G., 2015. "Does a college education reduce depressive symptoms in American young adults?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 75-84.
    3. Darin-Mattsson, Alexander & Andel, Ross & Celeste, Roger Keller & Kåreholt, Ingemar, 2018. "Linking financial hardship throughout the life-course with psychological distress in old age: Sensitive period, accumulation of risks, and chain of risks hypotheses," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 201(C), pages 111-119.
    4. Cohen, Alison K. & Rehkopf, David H. & Deardorff, Julianna & Abrams, Barbara, 2013. "Education and obesity at age 40 among American adults," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 34-41.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. de Almeida, Filipa & Scott, Ian J. & Soro, Jerônimo C. & Fernandes, Daniel & Amaral, André R. & Catarino, Mafalda L. & Arêde, André & Ferreira, Mário B., 2024. "Financial scarcity and cognitive performance: A meta-analysis," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    2. Jo Mhairi Hale, 2017. "Cognitive Disparities: The Impact of the Great Depression and Cumulative Inequality on Later-Life Cognitive Function," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(6), pages 2125-2158, December.
    3. Mäkinen, Tomi & Laaksonen, Mikko & Lahelma, Eero & Rahkonen, Ossi, 2006. "Associations of childhood circumstances with physical and mental functioning in adulthood," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(8), pages 1831-1839, April.
    4. Hui Zheng & Jonathan Dirlam & Paola Echave, 2021. "Divergent Trends in the Effects of Early Life Factors on Adult Health," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 40(5), pages 1119-1148, October.
    5. Pei, Yaolin & Cong, Zhen & Wu, Bei, 2020. "Education, adult children's education, and depressive symptoms among older adults in rural China," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 253(C).
    6. Brandt, Martina & Deindl, Christian & Hank, Karsten, 2012. "Tracing the origins of successful aging: The role of childhood conditions and social inequality in explaining later life health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(9), pages 1418-1425.
    7. Brady, David & Guerra, Christian & Kohler, Ulrich & Link, Bruce, 2022. "The Long Arm of Prospective Childhood Income for Mature Adult Health in the United States," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 63(4), pages 543-559.
    8. Fubaihui Wang & Qingkai Zhen & Kaigang Li & Xu Wen, 2018. "Association of socioeconomic status and health-related behavior with elderly health in China," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(9), pages 1-14, September.
    9. Eunsun Kwon & Sojung Park, 2017. "Heterogeneous Trajectories of Physical and Mental Health in Late Middle Age: Importance of Life-Course Socioeconomic Positions," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-20, May.
    10. Brienna Perelli-Harris & Stefanie Hoherz & Fenaba Addo & Trude Lappegård & Ann Evans & Sharon Sassler & Marta Styrc, 2018. "Do Marriage and Cohabitation Provide Benefits to Health in Mid-Life? The Role of Childhood Selection Mechanisms and Partnership Characteristics Across Countries," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 37(5), pages 703-728, October.
    11. Iveson, Matthew H. & Deary, Ian J., 2017. "Intergenerational social mobility and subjective wellbeing in later life," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 11-20.
    12. Ko, Pei-Chun & Yeung, Wei-Jun Jean, 2019. "Childhood conditions and productive aging in China," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 229(C), pages 60-69.
    13. Schaan, Barbara, 2014. "The interaction of family background and personal education on depressive symptoms in later life," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 94-102.
    14. Zachary Zimmer & Heidi Hanson & Ken Smith, 2016. "Childhood socioeconomic status, adult socioeconomic status, and old-age health trajectories," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 34(10), pages 285-320.
    15. Zeng Yi & Danan Gu & Kenneth Land, 2007. "The association of childhood socioeconomic conditions with healthy longevity at the oldest-old ages in China," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 44(3), pages 497-518, August.
    16. Bauldry, Shawn & Shanahan, Michael J. & Boardman, Jason D. & Miech, Richard A. & Macmillan, Ross, 2012. "A life course model of self-rated health through adolescence and young adulthood," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(7), pages 1311-1320.
    17. Ming Wen & Danan Gu, 2011. "The Effects of Childhood, Adult, and Community Socioeconomic Conditions on Health and Mortality among Older Adults in China," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 48(1), pages 153-181, February.
    18. Haas, Steven, 2008. "Trajectories of functional health: The 'long arm' of childhood health and socioeconomic factors," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(4), pages 849-861, February.
    19. Freedman, Vicki A. & Martin, Linda G. & Schoeni, Robert F. & Cornman, Jennifer C., 2008. "Declines in late-life disability: The role of early- and mid-life factors," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(7), pages 1588-1602, April.
    20. Brady, David & Guerra, Christian & Kohler, Ulrich & Link, Bruce, 2021. "The Long Arm of Prospective Childhood Income for Mature Adult Health in the U.S," SocArXiv gwkma, Center for Open Science.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:74:y:2012:i:5:p:734-743. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.