Session: Reproductive Health, Partnerships, Fertility, and Wellbeing
Miscarriage reporting in longitudinal and cross-sectional surveys in Great Britain (Selin Köksal, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine)
Miscarriage affects approximately one in four women in their lifetime.While surveys capture miscarriages that have not resulted in a healthcare visit, they are also prone to misreporting. Using data from BCS70, Next Steps, UKHLS, and Natsal-3, we conducted a comparative analysis to examine patterns of miscarriage reporting across survey designs. The share of miscarriages among all reported pregnancies ranged from 14 to 21%. While prevalence estimates were broadly consistent across surveys, UKHLS systematically recorded the lowest prevalence and Next Steps the highest. Miscarriage prevalence increased after age 34 in all surveys, with notable disparities in the early 40s. Overall, miscarriage estimates in GB surveys consistent with clinical evidence, but heterogeneity across surveys reflects differences in pregnancy history collection, age and cohort composition, and questionnaire design.
Menopause, HRT and women’s well-being: Evidence from the UK
(Fatima Najeeb, UCL)
Despite affecting all women, rigorous causal evidence on the impacts of menopause remains scarce. This study examines the consequences of menopause and perimenopause for women’s health and labor market outcomes, using data from the 1970 British Cohort Study. We exploit variation in age at (peri)menopause and the information shock generated by a 2021 documentary to estimate causal effects using difference-in-differences.
We find that the onset of menopause and perimenopause leads to increased HRT take-up, driven mainly by more educated women. Furthermore, menopause onset leads to reductions in anxiety-and mood-related doctor visits, improvements in the Warwick wellbeing measure, and increased exercise. While we do not find any significant effects on whether a woman is employed, we find a decline in annual earnings following onset, which deepens over time before beginning to subside.
When Pain Shapes Careers: Labour Market Effects of Endometriosis Across the Life Course (Katharina Richter, University College Dublin)
Endometriosis is a chronic, severely painful condition affecting an estimated 10% of reproductive-age women. Despite growing medical attention, its long-term labour market consequences remain poorly understood. Using the 1970 British Cohort Study, this paper examines life-course labour market impacts of endometriosis through a matched case-control design, employing logistic regressions and Cox proportional hazards models. Preliminary results show that women with endometriosis are significantly more likely to exit the labour force for health-related reasons. Further analyses will examine the impact of endometriosis on earnings, occupational attainment and the role of endometriosis-associated reduced fertility. By providing rigorous life-course evidence, this paper contributes new economic insights into a health condition with significant but under-recognised labour market implications.
Fertility and childlessness in UK cohort studies (Aase Villadsen, UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies)
Since the end of World War II, Britain has experienced substantial societal changes, including shifts in fertility patterns. Robust longitudinal and cross-cohort research requires harmonised data to produce comparable fertility measures that enable the study of predictors and consequences of these changes across generations. This paper presents newly created datasets on fertility histories that have been derived and harmonised across four British longitudinal cohort studies: the National Survey of Health and Development (1946 cohort), the National Child Development Study (1958 cohort), the British Cohort Study (1970 cohort), and Next Steps (1990 cohort). We describe fertility trends across these cohorts and demonstrate their consistency with national fertility statistics. We further analyse the characteristics associated with childlessness at age 50 among women and men in the 1958 and 19
British Parents’ Trajectories of Partnership and Fertility and Midlife Mental Health (Yan Zhang, University of Southampton)
This study examines how complex family formation processes are associated with midlife mental health, by focusing on the intersection of partnership and fertility dynamics, including multi-partner fertility (MPF). Using a life course framework, we examine how family life trajectories relate to midlife mental health while controlling for parental background and childhood factors. We also analyse how family background buffers or exacerbates mental health risks associated with complex family life trajectories. We find that individuals in trajectories involving MPF or serial cohabitations report worse mental health than those in long-term marriages. These associations remain, but the strength of the associations is reduced once parental background and childhood circumstances are considered. Individuals from disadvantaged family backgrounds face relatively greater risks.
