Growing Up in Counties with Low Levels of Upward Mobility and Health Outcomes in Early Adulthood

• In Event: 50210 - Health Inequalities Across the Life Course

Abstract

We examine the contextual effect of early-life county-level upward mobility (ECUM) on young adults’ health for cohorts of Americans born around 1974-1983. Our unique contributions to the literature include 1) examining the contextual effect of county-level upward mobility adopting a life course approach, 2) accounting for selection into counties of residence and a variety of individual, family, school, and county continual characteristics, 3) investigating two potential mechanisms, and 4) looking at a wide range of objective and subjective health outcomes. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), we performed fixed effects, propensity score weighting, and mediation analyses. We find that growing up in counties with higher ECUM is protective of individual health later in life. This protection is particularly robust for self-rated health and mental health. The effect of ECUM is particularly strong for women, non-Hispanic Blacks, Native Americans and Asians, and second-generation immigrants. Individual upward mobility experience accounts for 13.2 percent and 7.46 percent of the effect of ECUM on self-rated health and mental health, respectively. Perceptions of upward mobility prospects account for 4.3 percent of the effect of ECUM on mental health, but it is not an influential mediator for self-rated health.

Authors

• Emma Zang, Yale University

• Meera Choi, Yale University

• Jason Wong, Yale University

• Melissa Tian, Yale University