Early life health origins of family outcomes: A longitudinal analysis of adolescent health and partnership and fertility trajectories

Summary

Many high-income societies, including the UK, are experiencing trends of delayed parenthood and declining fertility.

These trends have been partly linked to educational expansion, shifting values toward greater personal freedom, and, more recently, economic uncertainty. However, these factors do not fully account for the significant changes in family behaviours across generations. One less widely explored determinant is early-life health, which may play a fundamental role.

This project aims to address this gap by investigating how early-life health shapes partnership and fertility trajectories across cohorts and life stages, using longitudinal data from five British cohort studies:

• 1946 National Survey for Health and Development (NSHD)
• 1958 National Child Development Study (NCDS)
• 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70)
• Next Steps
• and UK Household Longitudinal Study.

This project will address the following questions:

1. What is the association between early-life health and later-life partnership and fertility trajectories among cohorts who have completed their childbearing years? How has it changed across cohorts?
2. What is the association between early-life health and first partnership formation and transition to parenthood? How has it changed across cohorts?
3. What is the association between early-life health and expectations for family transitions among cohorts who are currently in their active childbearing years?

This project is supported by an advisory board comprising academic experts from multiple institutions, including UCL, the University of Southampton, Birkbeck, University of London, the University of Padova and the University of Helsinki.

The board also includes representatives from government (Office for National Statistics) and the non-governmental sector (International Longevity Centre).

Research project team

Yiling Guo

PhD Student, Research Assistant

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Alina Pelikh

Senior Research Fellow in Demography and CLS Deputy Research Director

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George Ploubidis

Professor of Population Health and Statistics, and Director of the National Child Development Study and 1970 British Cohort Study

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Cohort studies used

The researchers used data from the following cohort studies in this project:

1958 National Child Development Study

The 1958 National Child Development Study (NCDS) is following the lives of more than 17,000 people born in England, Scotland and Wales in a single week of 1958.

1970 British Cohort Study

The 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70) is following the lives of around 17,000 people born in England, Scotland and Wales in a single week of 1970.

Next Steps

Next Steps follows the lives of around 16,000 people in England born in 1989-90.