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Premarital family context is influential for the transition to first marriage. This study examines the extent to which coresidence with parents and family income is associated with the transition t...

Background: Suicidal ideation is a strong antecedent of suicidal behavior, associated with increased likelihood of suicide. Thus, suicidal ideation serves to identify which groups are at more risk of suicide and has policy implications for targeting groups to prevent suicide. Aims: A substantial body of research has addressed potential determinants of suicide ideation in Korea. Little attention has been paid, however, to analyzing the extent to which socioeconomic attainments (education, household income, and employment status) are associated with risk of suicidal ideation, drawing on nationally representative data. Methods: Data were drawn from the 2012 Korea Welfare Panel Study (KOWEPS). Among the 12,606 respondents, the findings are based on 1,500 young adults (age 18–35) and 3,469 middle-aged adults (age 36–55) who answered a question about suicidal ideation. Results: For young adults, respondents from 2-year and 4-year colleges and higher had lower probabilities of suicidal ideation compared with respondents from high school. People out of the labor force also exhibited an elevated risk of suicidal ideation compared with those in waged employment. Middle-aged adults displayed different patterns. Middle-aged respondents from 4-year colleges or higher had an increased likelihood of suicidal ideation. The likelihood of reporting suicidal ideation was predicted to decrease as household income increased only for middle-aged adults. Conclusions: The information about suicidal ideation was obtained from only one question of self-response, which limits the validity of the suicidal ideation measurement. The cross-sectional setting of the data prevents us from estimating causal relationships. Nevertheless, the findings imply that age-specific policy should be implemented to ameliorate differential risk for suicidal ideation and benefit public mental health in the long run.

Using nationally representative longitudinal data collected in South Korea from 2006 to 2013, this study evaluates the associations between nonstandard employment and various health outcomes with a focus on gender differences. We also examine to what extent family status, that is, marital status and parenthood, conditions these associations for men and women. Our results reveal an important role of selection in that many of the significantly negative associations between nonstandard/self-employment and health outcomes disappear in fixed-effects models when time-invariant unobserved individual heterogeneity is taken into account. Such negative selection appears to be more pronounced for men than for women. We also find a significant association between nonstandard/self-employment and health, which differs by gender and particular health outcomes examined. As for the moderating role of family status, our results show that mothers do benefit from self-employment in terms of lower depressive symptoms.

Although research documents a link between neighborhood physical disorder and psychological distress, we know little about the extent to which this association varies by age. Utilizing the person–environment fit model and drawing on data from the fourth wave of the Americans’ Changing Lives Survey, we examine the extent to which age influences the association between perceptions of neighborhood physical disorder and psychological distress, as measured by depressive symptoms. We employ both continuous and categorical measures of age to test for a potential moderating effect. Overall findings based on linear regression analyses reveal that the mental distress resulting from the perception of physically deteriorating neighborhood declines with age. Stated otherwise, we find that the psychological distress associated with the perception of neighborhood physical disorder is far less pronounced for the young-old (60 years and above) and late-old (70 years and above) adults as compared with their young middle-aged (40–49 years) and late middle-aged (50–59 years) counterparts.

The objective of this study was to examine the extent to which the association between different types of social activities and multiple dimensions of health outcomes varies by age groups among Korean elderly. This study employed regression models with data from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Social activities were associated with various dimensions of health status of adult women after adjusting for background variables. The association between social activities and health status does not show a great difference between adults of ages 45–64 and of those aged over 65 years. Compared to informal family relationships, involvement in social activities was positively associated with various health outcomes. While previous studies emphasized the importance of informal family relationships among the elderly, which increase with age, this study showed that social activities have a significant influence on the health of elderly females. This influence is equally significant for adults older than 65 year...

This study examines whether and how select individual characteristics moderate the relationship between neighborhood disorder and a sense of personal control. Our findings show that neighborhood disorder is associated with a decreased sense of control. However, regression analyses including interaction terms of neighborhood disorder and some individual characteristics show that the negative effect of neighborhood disorder on sense of control is greater among Whites and people with low economic hardship, compared with racial minorities and those with high economic hardship, when neighborhood disorder is high. These results imply that, for Whites and those with low economic hardship, sense of control is more vulnerable to high levels of neighborhood disorder, even though Whites and people with low economic hardship show higher levels of sense of control than their counterparts when neighborhood disorder is low. Our research contributes to a more nuanced understanding of neighborhood disorder and psychological well-being. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

How does parental divorce influence the sense of control in adult offspring? Numerous studies have examined the implications of parental divorce on adult psychological well-being. However, little attention has been paid to the long-term consequences of parental divorce for adult sense of control. Using data from the Survey of Aging, Status, and the Sense of Control, we investigate whether or not, and how, parental divorce is associated with offspring sense of control. The results show that parental divorce has mixed relationships with offspring sense of control, indicating both positive and negative mechanisms. On one hand, parental divorce significantly increases adult sense of control. This positive association holds even when we adjust for socioeconomic attainments and social relationships. On the other hand, parental divorce is associated with decreased levels of sense of control through higher economic hardship, lower educational attainment, and nonparticipation in volunteering. The authors discuss the implications of these results.

Previous studies have shown that residents of neighborhoods with the concentration of poverty and female-headed households are at higher risk for depression. This study examines the effect of socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhood on individual mental health by considering two possible mediating mechanisms: perceived neighborhood disorder and social relationships (social support and neighborhood social ties). The data were obtained from the 1995 Community, Crime, and Health survey sample consisting of 2482 adults and from a 1998 follow-up survey. Findings indicate that residents of disadvantaged neighborhoods have significantly higher levels of psychological distress than do residents of more advantaged neighborhoods with the introduction of social relationships and neighborhood disorder as mediators. Neighborhood disadvantage is associated with depression in three ways: (1) neighborhood disadvantage increased depression directly, (2) neighborhood disadvantage increased depression by way of neighborhood disorder, and (3) neighborhood disadvantage decreased depression through enhanced social relationships.

Is neighborhood-specific social support the most effective type of social support for buffering the effect of neighborhood disorder on depression? Matching theory suggests that it is. The authors extend the research on neighborhood disorder and adult depression by showing that individuals who have higher levels of both general and neighborhood-specific social relationships, measured by social support and neighborhood social ties, are less vulnerable to negative effects of neighborhood disorder. Using the Community, Crime, and Health Survey, the authors found that neighborhood disorder's association with depression is lower for people with supportive social ties with neighbors and for people with more general social support. The latter conditional effect is stronger than the former, indicating that support in which the source of support matches the source of strain is not more effective than general support at buffering the effects of neighborhood strain. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Objective: The purpose of this study was twofold: (1) to examine the association between volunteering and trajectories of depression; and (2) to evaluate whether this relationship varies by age. Method: Data come from three waves of the Americans’ Changing Lives (ACL) study. ACL is a nationally representative sample of adults 25 years of age or older who lived in the United States. Results: Latent growth model analysis indicates that although volunteering is associated with lower levels of baseline depression, it does not predict trajectories of depression. Nevertheless, further analyses reveal an age variation in the relationship between volunteering and trajectories of depression. Specifically, we find that volunteering affects the decline of depression for individuals above age 65; yet there is no effect of volunteering on trajectories of depression for younger and middle-aged adults. Discussion: Overall findings highlight the importance of assessing the long-term health impact of volunteering and doing so under diverse social structural contexts.