Intergenerational Chains of Disadvantage: How Childhood Maltreatment Shapes Patterns of Childbearing and Low Birth Weight

• In Event: 30860 - Section on Aging and the Life Course Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 8. Social Relationships Over the Life Course

Abstract

Birth outcomes are important mechanisms through which health disadvantages and broader inequalities transmit across generations. Childhood maltreatment has long-term consequences that may increase risks of offspring's adverse birth outcomes (e.g., low birth weight; LBW) and shape patterns of early childbirth, which itself has perinatal implications, thus perpetuating cycles of inequality. We contribute to this literature and answer growing calls to disentangle types of adversities by exploring how (1) childbearing ages vary by childhood exposure to four unique types of maltreatment--neglect and physical, sexual, and emotional abuse--and (2) how exposure and childbearing age jointly shape LBW. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, we find that those exposed to maltreatment exhibit relatively more teen pregnancies and, on average, have births at younger ages, although to different extents across maltreatment types. Random effects logit models show higher LBW risks among those exposed to physical abuse, but only at the youngest and oldest childbearing ages. These preliminary results uncover the social (childbearing age) and intergenerational health (LBW) consequences of childhood maltreatment.

Authors

• Allison Stolte, University of Virginia

• Christina Kamis, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign