Unplanned Costs and Benefits: Gender and Spousal Spillover Effects of Retirement on Health

Objective

Our study assesses how women and men's health indicators are shaped by their spouse's retirement.

Background

The retirement process can reshape the health of a retiree, but these effects can also extend onto the health of spouses. Although past research has largely focused on how men's retirement might negatively shape their wife's health outcomes, it is possible that wives' retirement has detrimental effects on their husband's health as well.

Method

Using data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), we employ a fuzzy regression discontinuity design to identify the causal effects of spousal retirement on indicators of physical and mental health in married older adults.

Results

Our results suggested that men, not women, experience the most negative spousal spillover effects of retirement on their health outcomes. We found the most support for spillover effects on spouses' physical health outcomes. Additionally, men who are not working when their spouse retires experienced the most negative health effects.

Conclusion

Women and men's health is differentially affected by spousal retirement, where men might be the most negatively affected by their spouses' transition in the U.S. context. These results contradict conventional wisdom that undergirds numerous untested assumptions underlying prior research on this significant life transition.

MEASURING OLDER ADULT LONELINESS ACROSS COUNTRIES

The topic of older adult loneliness commands increasing media and policy attention around the world. Are surveys of aging equipped to measure it? We assess the measurement of loneliness in large-scale aging studies in 31 countries. In each country, we document available loneliness measures, examine correlations between different measures, and assess how these correlations differ by gender and age group. There is substantial heterogeneity in available measures of loneliness across countries. Within countries with multiple measures, the correlations between measures are high (range .38-.78). Differences by age and gender group are relatively small. Correlations between loneliness measures and living alone and being without a spouse are positive and similar in magnitude across countries, supporting construct validity. We establish that even single-item measures of loneliness contribute meaningful information in diverse contexts, with reliable and consistent measurement properties within many countries.

Pregnancy scares, pregnancy uncertainty, and abortion attitude change

Women's attitudes towards abortion are often assessed infrequently in their lives. This measurement may not capture how lifetime events, such as reproductive experiences, potentially influence attitudes towards abortion. Although reproductive attitudes can fluctuate with life's circumstances, there is little research on how abortion attitudes may change when a woman suspects she might be pregnant. Using an intensive longitudinal dataset collected in Michigan, the Relationship Dynamics and Social Life (RDSL) study (2008-2012), we test the relationship between the timing of pregnancy scares and uncertainty and abortion attitudes using hybrid effects models. We find that women become less supportive of abortion while experiencing a pregnancy scare or uncertainty; however, this association exists only during a scare or uncertainty. These findings highlight that abortion attitudes may change when a woman suspects she might be pregnant. However, attitudinal change may not last past this period.

Population Aging, Demographic Metabolism, and the Rising Tide of Late Middle Age to Older Adult Loneliness around the World

This study examines how population aging will shape a crucial aspect of mental health and social well-being - loneliness. Drawing on theories of demographic metabolism, United Nations' population estimates and projections, and survey data covering approximately 50% of the world's population aged 50 and above living in 27 countries, we estimate the role of population aging in shaping cross-national differences in loneliness from 1990 to 2050. We use survey data to estimate the prevalence of late middle age and older adult loneliness by age and sex, and then apply these rates to the evolving age and sex distributions of the populations. Our results highlight massive increases in loneliness at ages 50 and above with a tripling of the number of lonely adults in these age groups in our sample countries from 104.9 million in 1990 to 333.5 million in 2050, increasing variability across countries in the share of their populations composed of lonely adults 50 and above, and the feminization of global later life loneliness with an increasing share of lonely adults in these age ranges being women. These results illustrate the power of demographic modeling to advance understandings of national profiles of mental health and social well-being.

Socially Connected Neighborhoods and the Spread of Sexually Transmitted Infections

Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in the United States have been increasing at record levels and exhibit unequal spatial patterning across urban populations and neighborhoods. Research on the effects of residential and nearby neighborhoods on STI proliferation has largely ignored the role of socially connected contexts, even though neighborhoods are routinely linked by individuals' movements across space for work and other social activities. We showcase how commuting and public transit networks contribute to the social spillover of STIs in Chicago. Examining data on all employee-employer location links recorded yearly by the Census Bureau for more than a decade, we assess network spillover effects of local community STI rates on interconnected communities. Spatial and network autoregressive models show that exposure to STIs in geographically proximate and socially proximate communities contributes to increases in local STI levels, even net of socioeconomic and demographic factors and prior STIs. These findings suggest that geographically proximate and socially connected communities influence one another's infection rates through social spillover effects.

The intergenerational transmission of sexual frequency

Intergenerational relationships are one of the most frequently studied topics in the social sciences. Within the area of family, researchers find intergenerational similarity in family behaviors such as marriage, divorce, and fertility. Yet less research has examined the intergenerational aspects of a key proximate determinant of fertility: sexual frequency. We use the National Survey of Families and Households to examine the relationship between sexual frequency of parents and the sexual frequency of children when adults. We link parental sexual frequency in 1987/1988, when children were ages 5-18, to the sexual frequency of the children in 2001-2003 when these grown children were ages 18-34. We find a modest, yet significant association, between parental and adult children sexual frequency. A mechanism behind this association appears to be the higher likelihood of being in a union among children of parents with high sexual frequency.

The Physical, Mental, and Social Health of Middle-Aged and Older Adults without Close Kin in Canada

OBJECTIVES

We examine whether adults 45+ lacking a partner and children are disadvantaged in terms of physical, mental, and social aspects of health. Then we test whether the importance of family structure for these outcomes varies by age, gender, and educational attainment.

METHODS

We examine aging and social network modules from the Canadian General Social Survey to estimate associations between family structure and physical, mental, and social health, with the last measured as communication with relatives and friends, civic participation, and loneliness.

RESULTS

Results show that middle-aged and older adults without partners have lower levels of physical and mental health and higher levels of loneliness than those with partners. Those without partners and children (the "kinless") interact less with relatives than those who have children but not partners, but more with friends, showing some substitution. In terms of civic participation, kinless middle-aged and older adults have significantly lower odds of this type of engagement than peers with close kin. Our interaction models find some differences by age, gender, and education, which vary by the outcome.

DISCUSSION

Our results highlight some concerns about the well-being of kinless adults in Canada, especially as related to physical and mental health and two aspects of social health, loneliness, and civic participation. We find some substitution occurring, whereby middle-aged and older adults without family are interacting more with friends than comparable peers, but such substitution is marginal.

Measuring Older Adult Loneliness Across Countries

OBJECTIVES

The topic of older adult loneliness commands increasing media and policy attention around the world. Are surveys of aging equipped to measure it? We assess the measurement of loneliness in large-scale aging studies in 31 countries by describing the available measures, testing correlations between them, and documenting their construct validity.

METHODS

We use data from several "sister studies" of aging adults around the world. In each country, we document available loneliness measures, test for measurement reliability by examining correlations between different measures of loneliness, and assess how these correlations differ by gender and age group. We then evaluate construct validity by estimating correlations between loneliness measures and theoretically hypothesized constructs related to loneliness: living alone and not having a spouse.

RESULTS

There is substantial heterogeneity in available measures of loneliness across countries. Within countries with multiple measures, the correlations between measures are high (range 0.384-0.777, median 0.636). Although we find several statistically significant differences in these correlations by gender and age, the differences are small (gender: range -0.098 to 0.081, median -0.026; age group: range -0.194 to 0.092, median -0.003). Correlations between loneliness measures and living alone and being without a spouse are all positive, almost universally statistically significant, and similar in magnitude across countries, supporting construct validity.

DISCUSSION

This article establishes that even single-item measures of loneliness contribute meaningful information in diverse settings. Similar to the measurement of self-rated health, there are nuances to the measurement of older adult loneliness in different contexts, but it has reliable and consistent measurement properties within many countries.

National Profiles of Coronavirus Disease 2019 Mortality Risks by Age Structure and Preexisting Health Conditions

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Although individual age and preexisting health conditions are well-documented risk factors for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) mortality, it is unclear whether these 2 factors capture unique dimensions of risk for epidemic severity at the national level. In addition, no studies have examined whether national distributions of these factors are associated with epidemic experiences to date.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS

Drawing on surveys of older adults from 42 countries and estimated case fatality ratios by age and preexisting health conditions, we document and compare national profiles of COVID-19 mortality risks among older adults. We develop 2 measures of national risk profiles: one based on age structures and another based on distributions of preexisting health conditions. Our analysis compares these constructs and documents their associations with national COVID-19 mortality rates.

RESULTS

National profiles of COVID-19 mortality risk based on age structure and preexisting health conditions are moderately uncorrelated, capturing different aspects of risk. Both types of national risk profiles correlate meaningfully with countries' COVID-19 mortality experiences to date.

DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS

Measures of population age structure are readily available for every country in the world, while cross-national measures of older adult population health are more limited. In the COVID-19 crisis, these factors give different pictures of the countries with high and low risks of COVID-19 mortality. Moreover, our results suggest that both types of national risk profiles based on population health reflect current COVID-19 mortality severity in several countries, highlighting the need for more cross-national comparative data on older adult population health.