Does financial strain explain the association between children’s morbidity and parental non-employment?

Objectives: To investigate whether family financial resources explain the association between parental labour market participation and children’s health in families in Denmark and Sweden. Design: Parent reported questionnaire data from the survey of health and welfare among children and adolescents...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of epidemiology and community health (1979) 2005-04, Vol.59 (4), p.316-321
Main Authors: Reinhardt Pedersen, Charlotte, Madsen, Mette, Köhler, Lennart
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Assets
Biological and medical sciences
Child
Child Welfare
Child, Preschool
Children & youth
Childrens health
children’s health
Chronic Disease
Chronic diseases
chronic illness
Chronic illnesses
Complaints
Confounding (Statistics)
Denmark - epidemiology
Employment
Families & family life
family
Gender
Humans
Income
Labor market
Labor markets
Medical sciences
Medicine
Miscellaneous
Mothers
Parents
Parents & parenting
Participation
Prevalence
Psychophysiologic Disorders - epidemiology
Psychophysiologic Disorders - etiology
psychosomatic symptoms
Psychosomatics
Public health
Public health. Hygiene
Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine
Recurrence
Regression Analysis
Research Report
Research Reports
Single parents
social inequality
Statistical models
Sweden - epidemiology
Symptoms
Unemployment
Variables
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Objectives: To investigate whether family financial resources explain the association between parental labour market participation and children’s health in families in Denmark and Sweden. Design: Parent reported questionnaire data from the survey of health and welfare among children and adolescents in the Nordic countries, 1996. Participants: 4299 children aged 2–17 years. Measures: Three indicators measured children’s health: recurrent psychosomatic symptoms, chronic illness, and prescribed medicine. Four variables and a composite index were used to measure family financial resources. The variable on family labour market participation consisted of five groups according to family type and parents’ labour market participation. Results: Children in families with one or both parents without paid work had an increased prevalence of recurrent psychosomatic symptoms (odds ratio from 1.52 to 3.20) and chronic illnesses (odds ratio from 1.43 to 2.25), whereas the use of prescribed medicine did not differ (odds ratio from 0.67 to 1.15). The five indicators on family financial resources only slightly reduced the odds ratios for recurrent psychosomatic symptoms (odds ratio from 1.12 to 2.75) and chronic illnesses (odds ratio from 1.34 to 2.22), and the odds ratios for children’s use of prescribed medicine remained unchanged and non-significant (odds ratio from 0.62 to 1.18). Conclusions: Financial strain associated with non-employment does not explain the increased prevalence of health problems among children in families affected by non-employment in Denmark and Sweden. However, the associations between family labour market participation and children’s health differ according to family financial status.
ISSN:0143-005X
1470-2738
DOI:10.1136/jech.2003.013839