Gender and Cohort Differences in Work-Family Life Courses and Objective Markers of Health in Mid-Life: Evidence from the United Kingdom

The United Kingdom has seen dramatic changes in the nature of work and family and related normative gender divisions of labour over the past forty years. Participation in paid work is now a fact of life for the majority of women, including those with family responsibilities; fathers are more involved in childcare; and family forms have become increasingly diverse. In addition, these processes of change are occurring within the context of, and may be partially driving, increasing socioeconomic inequality between households and between women. While these changes in the work and family lives of men and women are well-documented, their relationship with health and wellbeing remains unclear. This study uses the wealth of longitudinal data now available in Britain to describe gender & cohort differences in work-family life course sequences across the three national birth cohort studies in the UK: the National Survey of Health and Development 1946 birth cohort, the National Child Development Study 1958 birth cohort, and the 1970 Birth Cohort Study. Sequence analysis is used to derive life course work-family typologies. Evidence of increasing individualisation across cohorts and the potential emergence of ‘new’ typologies is investigated, as are early life predictors of work-family patterns. Finally, the study investigates relationships between work-family typologies and objective markers of health risk in the two older cohorts. One of the objective health markers considered in this study inflammation, a significant predictor of chronic diseases such as coronary heart disease and type II diabetes. Early results suggest that gender differences in employment histories remain fairly entrenched across cohorts, and that educational attainment has a stronger relationship with inflammation in mid-life than the subsequent life course work and family trajectories it sets people on.