Healthy Paths? The Transition to Adulthood and Trajectories of Self-Rated Health

• In Event: 569 - Regular Session. Medical Sociology

Abstract

There is a large body of work demonstrating the relationship between health and transitions into and out of social roles. Much of this work focuses on one or a narrow set of role transitions at a time, which may not reflect the complexity with which we occupy social roles in our lives. Recent work on the transition to adulthood has examined five key role transitions (education, employment, residential independence, marriage, and parenthood) in combination with one another by identifying paths to adulthood—i.e., different configurations of role transitions made between adolescence and adulthood. However, there are few studies that examine whether these different paths have implications for young adult health. This study attempts to fill the gap by investigating whether health trajectories—changes in health from adolescence to adulthood—differ depending on one’s path to adulthood. Data come from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97), an annual and ongoing representative sample of young people, spanning from ages 12 to 30. Results indicate that there are differences across paths to adulthood, and those differences appear to favor paths where individuals continue their education beyond high school and delay family formation.

Author

• Shawna L. Rohrman, North Central College