U.S. Fertility in Life Course Context: A Research Note on Using Census-Held Linked Administrative Records for Geographic and Sociodemographic Subgroup Estimation.

Fertility is a life course process that is strongly shaped by geographic and sociodemographic subgroup contexts. In the United States, scholars face a choice: they can situate fertility in a life course perspective using panel data, which is typically representative only at the national level; or they can attend to subnational contexts using rate schedules, which do not include information on life course statuses. The method and data source we introduce here, Census-Held Linked Administrative Records for Fertility Estimation (CLAR-FE), permits both. It derives fertility histories and rate schedules from U.S. Census Bureau-held data for the nation and by state, racial and ethnic subgroups, and the important life course status of parity. We generate three types of rates for 2000-2020 at the national and state levels by race and ethnicity: age-specific rates and both unconditional and conditional parity- and age-specific rates. Where possible, we compare these rates with those produced by the National Center for Health Statistics. Our new rate schedules illuminate state and racial and ethnic differences in transitions to parenthood, providing evidence of the important subgroup heterogeneity that characterizes the United States. CLAR-FE covers nearly the entire U.S. population and is available to researchers on approved projects through the Census Bureau's Federal Statistical Research Data Centers.

Breastfeeding Initiation and Continuation Among Sexual Minority Women.

OBJECTIVES: Identify disparities in breastfeeding initiation and continuation among sexual minority women (SMW) and determine if known risk factors explain any observed disparities. METHODS: We used data from the 2006 to 2017 National Survey of Family Growth female pregnancy questionnaire. We measured sexual orientation using self-reported sexual identity and histories of same-sex sexual experiences reported by women (heterosexual-WSM [women who only reported sex with men]; heterosexual-WSW [women who reported sex with women]; bisexual, and lesbian. In total, we had 18,696 births that occurred within the last 10 years and used logistic and multinomial regression models to assess sexual orientation disparities in breastfeeding initiation and duration that clustered on women to account for potential multiple births to a woman. RESULTS: Compared to heterosexual-WSM, infants born to lesbian-identified women had decreased odds of ever being breastfed (OR 0.55, 95% CI 0.30, 0.99) and a decreased relative risk of being breastfed more than 6 months (RRR 0.46, 95% CI 0.22, 0.97). Infants of heterosexual-WSW had an increased odds of ever breastfeeding (OR 1.40, 95% CI 1.12, 1.74) and increased relative risk of breastfeeding more than 6 months (RRR 1.32, 95% CI 1.02, 1.69). CONCLUSIONS: Our results show that infants born to lesbian-identified women were less likely to be breastfed than those born to their heterosexual counterparts, even after adjusting for several factors associated with breastfeeding behaviors. We found no differences in breastfeeding between bisexual women and heterosexual-WSM. Understanding and addressing the barriers sexual minority women face for breastfeeding is critical for ensuring maternal and child health equity.

Adolescent Technology, Sleep, and Physical Activity Time in Two US Cohorts.

The advent of internet-enabled mobile digital devices has transformed US adolescent technology use over the last decade, yet little is known about how these changes map onto other health-related behaviors. We provide a national profile of how contemporary technology use fits into adolescents' daily health lifestyles compared to the previous generation, with particular attention to whether and for whom technology use displaces time spent in sleep or physical activity. Time diaries were collected from 11-17 year olds in 2002-03 (N=1,139) and 2014-16 (N=527) through the US Panel Study of Income Dynamics Child Development Supplement. Contemporary adolescents spent 40 minutes more per week in technology-focused activities, but their composition was more varied compared to the earlier cohort. Contemporary technology use was predictive of less time in physical activity, and adolescents engaged in frequent video game play spent less time in physical activity compared to peers with other technology use profiles.

"Healthier Than Just Healthy": Families Transmitting Health as Cultural Capital.

As the relationship between social class and health strengthens and socioeconomic and health inequalities widen, understanding how parents' socioeconomic advantage translates into health and class advantages in the next generation is increasingly important. Our analyses illustrate how a classed performance of "health" is a fundamental component of transmitting cultural capital in families and communities. Socially advantaged parents' health and class goals for children are often met simultaneously by building children's cultural capital in community-specific ways. This study uses observational, interview, and focus group data from families in two middle-class communities to illustrate how health-focused cultural capital acquisition plays out in everyday life. As parents manage children's lives to ensure future advantages, they often focus on health-related behaviors and performances as symbols of class-based distinction for their children. The synergy between family and community cultural capital is strengthening class and health advantages for some children, even as health-focused cultural capital often has drawbacks for stress and well-being. The intensification of and value placed on "health" in cultural capital may have long-term implications for health, socioeconomic attainment, and inequalities. If health-focused cultural capital continues to become increasingly salient for status attainment, its importance could grow, widening these gaps and reducing intergenerational mobility.

"Everything is Connected": Health Lifestyles and Teenagers' Social Distancing Behaviors in the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic requires people to engage in new health behaviors that are public, monitored, and often contested. Parents are typically considered responsible for controlling their children's behavior and instilling norms. We investigated how parents and teens managed teenagers' social distancing behaviors. Analyzing 100 longitudinal (2015-2020), dyadic qualitative interviews with teenagers and their parents in 20 families from two middle-class communities in which social distancing was normative, we found that preexisting health lifestyles were used to link social distancing behaviors to specific identities, norms, and understandings of health. The pandemic presented challenges resulting from contradictory threats to health, differing preferences, and conflicting social judgments. Parents responded to challenges by adhering to community norms and enforcing teens' social distancing behaviors. They drew on preexisting, individualized health lifestyles as cultural tools to justify social distancing messages, emphasizing group distinctions, morality, and worth in ways that perpetuated inequalities.

Sexual Orientation Disparities in Pregnancy and Infant Outcomes.

Objectives Little is known about maternal and infant health among sexual minority women (SMW), despite the large body of research documenting their multiple preconception risk factors. This study used data from the 2006-2015 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) to investigate sexual orientation inequities in pregnancy and birth outcomes, including miscarriage, stillbirth, preterm birth, and birth weight. Methods Women reported 19,955 study eligible pregnancies and 15,996 singleton live births. Sexual orientation was measured using self-reported identity and histories of same-sex sexual experiences (heterosexual-WSM [women who only report sex with men]; heterosexual-WSW [women who report sex with women]; bisexual, and lesbian). Logistic regression models were used that adjusted for several maternal characteristics. Results Compared to heterosexual-WSM, heterosexual-WSW (OR 1.25, 95% CI 1.00-1.58) and bisexual and lesbian women (OR 1.77, 95% CI 1.34-2.35) were more likely to report miscarriage, and bisexual and lesbian women were more likely to report a pregnancy ending in stillbirth (OR 2.85, 95% CI 1.40-5.83). Lesbian women were more likely to report low birth weight infants (OR 2.64, 95% CI 1.38-5.07) and bisexual and lesbian women were more likely to report very preterm births (OR 1.84, 95% CI 1.11-3.04) compared to heterosexual-WSM. Conclusions for Practice This study documents significant sexual orientation inequities in pregnancy and birth outcomes. More research is needed to understand the mechanisms that underlie disparate outcomes and to develop interventions to improve sexual minority women's maternal and infant health.

Residential Mobility Across Early Childhood and Children's Kindergarten Readiness.

Understanding residential mobility in early childhood is important for contextualizing family, school, and neighborhood influences on child well-being. We examined the consequences of residential mobility for socioemotional and cognitive kindergarten readiness using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort, a nationally representative longitudinal survey that followed U.S. children born in 2001 from infancy to kindergarten. We described individual, household, and neighborhood characteristics associated with residential mobility for children aged 0-5. Our residential mobility indicators examined frequency of moves, nonlinearities in move frequency, quality of moves, comparisons between moving houses and moving neighborhoods, and heterogeneity in the consequences of residential mobility. Nearly three-quarters of children moved by kindergarten start. Mobility did not predict cognitive scores. More moves, particularly at relatively high frequencies, predicted lower kindergarten behavior scores. Moves from socioeconomically advantaged to disadvantaged neighborhoods were especially problematic, whereas moves within a ZIP code were not. The implications of moves were similar across socioeconomic status. The behavior findings largely support an instability perspective that highlights potential disruptions from frequent or problematic moves. Our study contributes to literature emphasizing the importance of contextualizing residential mobility. The high prevalence and distinct implications of early childhood moves support the need for further research.

A longitudinal examination of US teen childbearing and smoking risk.

BACKGROUND: Teenage motherhood and smoking have important health implications for youth in the United States and globally, but the link between teen childbearing and subsequent smoking is inadequately understood. The selection of disadvantaged young women into early childbearing and smoking may explain higher smoking levels among teen mothers, but teen motherhood may also shape subsequent smoking through compromised maternal depression or socioeconomic status, and race/ethnicity may condition these processes. OBJECTIVE: This study examines the relationship between US teen childbearing and subsequent daily smoking, accounting for prior smoking and selection processes related to social disadvantage. Analyses investigate whether socioeconomic status and depression in young adulthood explained any relationship between teen childbearing and daily smoking, as well as examining racial/ethnic heterogeneity in these processes. METHODS: Multivariate binary logistic regression analyses employ the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health; N = 7,529). RESULTS: The highest daily smoking prevalence occurred among non-Hispanic White teen mothers, with lower prevalence among Hispanic and non-Hispanic Black teen mothers. Compared to other women, teenage mothers are 2.5 times as likely to smoke daily in young adulthood. Their greater likelihood of daily smoking is due in part to selection and is also mediated by socioeconomic status in ways that differ by race/ethnicity. CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggest that preventing teen pregnancy or ameliorating its socioeconomic consequences may decrease daily smoking in this vulnerable population. Reducing teen smoking, especially during pregnancy, could improve teen, maternal, and infant health and thereby increase US health and longevity. CONTRIBUTION: This study provides new, nationally representative information about selection, mediation, and heterogeneity processes in the relationship between teen childbearing and subsequent smoking.

Ecological Instability and Children's Classroom Behavior in Kindergarten.

We engage the concept of ecological instability to assess whether children's exposure to frequent change in multiple contexts is associated with teacher reports of students' overall behavior, externalizing behavior, and approach to learning during kindergarten. We operationalize multiple dimensions of children's exposure to repeated change-including the frequency, concurrency, chronicity, timing, and types of changes children experience-in a nationally representative longitudinal cohort of U.S.-born children (Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort, N ~ 4,750). We focus on early childhood, a period of substantial flux in children's family and neighborhood contexts. Predicted behavior scores differ by approximately one-fifth of a standard deviation for children who experienced high or chronic exposure to ecological change compared with those who experienced little or no change. These findings emphasize the distinctiveness of multidomain ecological instability as a risk factor for healthy development that should be conceptualized differently from the broader concept of normative levels of change in early childhood environments.

Young Children's Developmental Ecologies and Kindergarten Readiness.

Children enter the crucial transition to school with sociodemographic disparities firmly established. Domain-specific research (e.g., on poverty and family structure) has shed light on these disparities, but we need broader operationalizations of children's environments to explain them. Building on existing theory, this study articulates the concept of developmental ecology-those interrelated features of a child's proximal environment that shape development and health. Developmental ecology links structural and demographic factors with interactional, psychological, and genetic factors. Using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort (ECLS-B), this study conducts latent class analyses to identify how 41 factors from three domains-namely, household resources, health risks, and ecological changes-cluster within children as four overarching developmental ecologies. Because it documents how numerous factors co-occur within children, this method allows an approximation of their lived environments. Findings illuminate powerful relationships between race/ethnicity, parental age, socioeconomic background, and nativity and a child's developmental ecology, as well as associations between developmental ecology and kindergarten cognition, behavior, and health. Developmental ecology represents a major pathway through which demographic characteristics shape school readiness. Because specific factors have different implications depending on the ecologies in which they are embedded, findings support the usefulness of a broad ecological approach.

Family Complexity, Siblings, and Children's Aggressive Behavior at School Entry.

As family structure in the United States has become increasingly dynamic and complex, children have become more likely to reside with step- or half-siblings through a variety of pathways. When these pathways are accounted for, more than one in six U.S. children live with a step- or half-sibling at age 4. We use data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (N ~ 6,550) to assess the independent and joint influences of residing with a single parent or stepparent and with step- or half-siblings on children's aggressive behavior at school entry. The influences of parents' union status and complex sibship status on aggressive behavior are independent. Family resources partially explain the association between residing with an unpartnered mother and aggressive behavior regardless of sibship status. However, the resource hypothesis does not explain the association of complex sibship with aggressive behavior.

Bundles of Norms About Teen Sex and Pregnancy.

Teen pregnancy is a cultural battleground in struggles over morality, education, and family. At its heart are norms about teen sex, contraception, pregnancy, and abortion. Analyzing 57 interviews with college students, we found that "bundles" of related norms shaped the messages teens hear. Teens did not think their communities encouraged teen sex or pregnancy, but normative messages differed greatly, with either moral or practical rationalizations. Teens readily identified multiple norms intended to regulate teen sex, contraception, abortion, childbearing, and the sanctioning of teen parents. Beyond influencing teens' behavior, norms shaped teenagers' public portrayals and post hoc justifications of their behavior. Although norm bundles are complex to measure, participants could summarize them succinctly. These bundles and their conflicting behavioral prescriptions create space for human agency in negotiating normative pressures. The norm bundles concept has implications for teen pregnancy prevention policies and can help revitalize social norms for understanding health behaviors.

Residential Mobility in Early Childhood: Household and Neighborhood Characteristics of Movers and Non-Movers.

BACKGROUND: Understanding residential mobility in early childhood is important for contextualizing influences on child health and well-being. OBJECTIVE: This study describes individual, household, and neighborhood characteristics associated with residential mobility for children aged 0-5. METHODS: We examined longitudinal data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (ECLS-B), a nationally representative sample of children born in 2001. Frequencies describe the prevalence of characteristics for four waves of data and adjusted Wald tests compared means. RESULTS: Moving was common for these families with young children, as nearly three-quarters of children moved at least once. Movers transitioned to neighborhoods with residents of higher socioeconomic status but experienced no improved household socioeconomic position relative to non-movers. CONCLUSION: Both the high prevalence and unique implications of early childhood residential mobility suggest the need for further research.

Do depressive symptoms in male and female adolescents predict unintended births in emerging adulthood?

Unintended birth and mental health are major public health problems in the United States. To date, little research has examined the relationship between depressive symptoms and unintended births, and no research has examined this relationship among men. Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (N = 14,271) were used to examine the relationship between depressive symptoms among females and males in adolescence and unintended first birth in emerging adulthood. Respondents who reported higher levels of depressive symptoms in adolescence were more likely to report an unintended birth (OR 1.93, p < 0.001) compared with respondents who did not have children. They were also more likely to report an unintended birth compared with respondents who had an intended birth (OR 1.28, p < 0.05). The relationship between adolescent depressive symptoms and unintended birth remained significant, controlling for background variables, and it did not differ by gender. Adolescent depressive symptoms are associated with unintended birth in emerging adulthood. Thus, policies designed to treat depressive symptoms in adolescence may be effective in reducing unintended pregnancy among young adults.

Life course transitions in early adulthood and SES disparities in tobacco use.

A huge literature has documented adult socioeconomic disparities in smoking but says less about how these disparities emerge over the life course. Building on findings that smoking among adolescents differs only modestly by parental SES, we utilize a life course perspective on social differentiation to help explain the widening disparities in smoking in young adulthood. Our theory suggests that achieved socioeconomic status and the nature and timing of adult role transitions affect age-based trajectories of smoking and widen disparities in adult smoking. The analyses use data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which follows a representative national sample over four waves from ages 11-17 in 1994/1995 to 26-34 in 2007/2008. The results show divergent age trajectories in smoking by parental education and that achieved socioeconomic status and life course roles in young adulthood account in good part for differences in the age trajectories. The findings demonstrate the value of the life course perspective in understanding processes of increasing stratification in health behavior and health during the transition to adulthood.

Differences in hypertension by sexual orientation among U.S. young adults.

Using a nationally representative data set, this study provides the first estimates of differences in hypertension by sexual orientation using objective measures of systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Logistic regressions showed that there were no differences in hypertensive risk between mostly heterosexual/bisexual identified-respondents and heterosexual-identified respondents among both men and women. Gay men, however, are almost twice as likely (odds ratio = 1.92, p < .01) to be hypertensive compared to heterosexual men. The elevated risk is not explained by measures of minority stress, nor by cardiovascular disease risk factors such as smoking, alcohol use, drug use, BMI, or physical activity. No differences in hypertension risk by sexual orientation were detected among female respondents. The results suggest that gay men face an excess risk for hypertension compared to heterosexual men that is not explained by differences in measured health behaviors.

Young maternal age and low birth weight risk: An exploration of racial/ethnic disparities in the birth outcomes of mothers in the United States.

This study considers how low birth weight (LBW) prevalence varies by race/ethnicity and maternal age and explores mechanisms that explain disparities. Results show that maternal age patterns in LBW risk for African Americans differ from whites and foreign- and U.S.-born Hispanics. Background socioeconomic disadvantage, together with current socioeconomic status and smoking during pregnancy, explain almost all of the LBW disparity between white teenage mothers and their older counterparts. These findings suggest that social disadvantage is a primary driver in unfavorable birth outcomes among white teenage mothers compared to older white mothers. Alternatively, background disadvantage and other social characteristics explain very little of the LBW disparities among African Americans and U.S.- and foreign-born Hispanics. Overall, these results indicate LBW disparities by maternal age are a complex product of socioeconomic disadvantage and current social and behavioral factors, such that LBW risk does not operate uniformly by race/ethnicity or maternal age.

Distinction through distancing: Norm formation and enforcement during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The unequal spread of COVID-19 was accompanied by disparities in adherence to social distancing. Research is needed on social processes that facilitated widespread adherence to distancing, how they connected with existing resource access and belief systems, and how they potentially strengthened intergroup boundaries. We integrated insights from research on social norms and cultural capital to analyze early pandemic (April-August 2020) qualitative interviews with parents and their teenage children in two higher-resource communities in the United States. Our findings uncovered four interrelated processes that facilitated the rapid establishment of norms around distancing, concurrently strengthening group boundaries. Community members: 1) drew on existing cultural capital to smooth the establishment of new social norms, 2) associated social distancing with individual moral worth and community identity, 3) applied double standards that granted certain exceptions to ingroup members to maintain social cohesion, and 4) drew strong distinctions between their own and outsiders' social distancing behaviors and moral worth. Our findings articulate social processes that allowed for rapid cohesion around distancing and show how these mechanisms strengthened existing community social boundaries.

Extended household transitions, race/ethnicity, and early childhood cognitive outcomes.

Beyond mothers' union status transitions, other adults' transitions into and out of the household contribute to family instability, particularly in early childhood. Using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (N≅8550), this study examines associations between extended household transitions and age 2 cognitive development. A substantial minority of toddlers experiences these transitions, and their consequences vary by household member type, entry versus exit, and race/ethnicity. Extended household transitions predict lower cognitive scores for white children, but the selection of low-socioeconomic status families into extended households explains these disparities. Grandparent transitions predict significantly higher cognitive scores for African American and Latino children than whites, and some "other adult" transitions predict higher scores for Latinos than African Americans and whites. Extended household transitions' consequences are independent of co-occurring residential moves and partner transitions. Findings suggest that studying extended household transitions is useful for understanding children's early development, and their consequences vary by race/ethnicity.

"Dedicated to being healthy": Young adults' deployments of health-focused cultural capital.

Performances of "health" through diet, exercise, and body size are an increasingly important form of cultural capital transmitted to children. Yet less is known about how socioeconomically privileged young people internalize and deploy that capital or how those less privileged manage their relative lack of capital. How does health-focused cultural capital acquired in childhood shape socioeconomic inequalities, health behaviors, and understandings of health in young adulthood? Our analysis of 113 interviews found that health-focused cultural capital acquired in early life reinforced young adults' socioeconomic and health advantages by helping them claim discipline and morality on the basis of their health behaviors and body size. Two key phenomena tended to be present among our many socioeconomically privileged but not our fewer less privileged participants: family socialization into classed diet- and exercise-related health behaviors resulting in a classed appearance of health (despite less-than-ideal behaviors), and cohesive life course narratives linking these behaviors to hard work and moral worth. Less socioeconomically privileged participants' understandings of health and healthy behaviors were different, rarely linking health to worthiness and discipline. To understand the intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic attainment and health in US society, we must consider how behaviors and group-based norms, identities, and understandings of health coalesce in classed health lifestyles that convey cultural capital.