title: The Family Life Course and Health: Partnership, Fertility Histories, and Later-Life Physical Health Trajectories in Australia.
abstract: Life course perspectives suggest that later-life health reflects long-term social patterns over an individual's life: in particular, the occurrence and timing of key roles and transitions. Such social patterns have been demonstrated empirically for multiple aspects of fertility and partnership histories, including timing of births and marriage, parity, and the presence and timing of a marital disruption. Most previous studies have, however, addressed particular aspects of fertility or partnership histories singly. We build on this research by examining how a holistic classification of family life course trajectories from ages 18 to 50, incorporating both fertility and partnership histories, is linked to later-life physical health for a sample of Australian residents. Our results indicate that long-term family life course trajectories are strongly linked to later-life health for men but only minimally for women. For men, family trajectories characterized by early family formation, no family formation, an early marital disruption, or high fertility are associated with poorer physical health. Among women, only those who experienced both a disrupted marital history and a high level of fertility were found to be in poorer health.
authors.affiliation: The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. m.oflaherty@uq.edu.au.|Institute for Social Science Research, The University of Queensland, Level 2, Cycad Building (1018), 80 Meiers Rd, Indooroopilly, 4068, Queensland, Australia. m.oflaherty@uq.edu.au.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: O'Flaherty
authors.affiliation: The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
authors.forename: Janeen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Baxter
authors.affiliation: The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
authors.forename: Michele
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Haynes
authors.affiliation: Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia.
authors.forename: Gavin
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Turrell
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001315:Australia; D005191:Family Characteristics; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008393:Marriage; D008875:Middle Aged; D011157:Population Dynamics; D012737:Sex Factors; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Fertility; Health; Life course; Marriage; Sequence analysis