Oldroyd, Rebecca;
Rahman, Shazia;
DeRose, Laurie F;
Hadfield, Kristin;
(2021)
Family Structure Transitions: Prevalence and Physical Health Effects in Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam.
Journal of Child and Family Studies
, 31
(7)
pp. 1749-1760.
10.1007/s10826-021-02148-2.
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Abstract
This study aimed to identify the prevalence and physical health consequences of family structure transitions among children in Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam. In many high-income countries, family structure transitions are common, and research suggests that they can lead to worse physical health for children. However, we know little about either the prevalence or consequences of family structure transitions for children in low-and middle-income countries, who make up the vast majority of the world's children. First, we estimated the number of family structure transitions by age 12 using four rounds of Young Lives data from four low-and middle-income countries (N = 8062, Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam) and validated our prevalence estimates with another dataset from these same countries. The proportion of children experiencing a family structure transition by age 12 was: 14.8% in Ethiopia, 5.6% in India, 22.0% in Peru, and 7.7% in Vietnam. We put these estimates in context by comparing them to 17 high- and upper-middle-income countries. Second, using linear mixed models, we found that family structure transitions were not directly associated with worse physical health for children in Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam. Children in Peru experienced higher rates of family structure transitions relative to children in the other Young Lives countries, and similar rates to many of the 17 comparison countries, yet physical health was unaffected. It is possible that in low-and middle-income countries, the environment may overwhelm family stability as a determinant of physical health.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Family Structure Transitions: Prevalence and Physical Health Effects in Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam. |
| Location: | United States |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s10826-021-02148-2 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-021-02148-2 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
| Keywords: | Cross-cultural, Family relationships, Family structure transitions, Health, Low-and middle-income countries |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Social Research Institute |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10214362 |
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