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Author: Hughes, Mary Elizabeth
Resulting in 4 citations.
1. Waldron, Ingrid
Hughes, Mary Elizabeth
Brooks, Tracy L.
Marriage Protection and Marriage Selection--Prospective Evidence for Reciprocal Effects of Marital Status and Health
Social Science and Medicine 43,1 (July 1996): 113-123.
Also: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0277953695003479
Cohort(s): Young Women
Publisher: Elsevier
Keyword(s): Employment; Health Factors; Health/Health Status/SF-12 Scale; Marital Dissolution; Marital Status; Wives, Work

Married adults are generally healthier than unmarried adults. It has been hypothesized that marriage is associated with good health because marriage has beneficial effects on health (marriage protection effects) and/or because healthier individuals are more likely to marry and to stay married (marriage selection effects). To investigate these hypotheses, this study analyzes prospective panel data for a large national sample of women in the U.S. (the National Longitudinal Surveys of Young Women). The women were aged 24-34 yr at the beginning of two successive five-year follow-up intervals. Analyses of the prospective data indicate that there were significant marriage protection effects. but only among women who were not employed. Specifically. for women who were not employed. married women had better health trends than unmarried women in each follow-up interval. It appears that marriage had beneficial effects on health for women who did not have a job which could provide an alternative source of financial resources and social support. In addition, analyses of the prospective data provide limited evidence for marriage selection effects. Specifically, women who had better health initially were more likely to marry and less likely to experience marital dissolution. but only for women who were not employed full-time and only during the first follow-up interval. Thus the prospective evidence suggests that, for women who were not employed, both marriage protection and marriage selection effects contributed to the marital status differential in health observed in cross-sectional data. In contrast, neither marriage protection nor marriage selection effects were observed for women who were employed full-time. As would be expected, the cross-sectional data show that marital status differentials in health were large and highly significant for women who were not employed, whereas marital status differentials in health were much smaller and often not significant for employed women. Women who were neither married nor employed had particularly poor health. Additional evidence indicates that the women who were neither married nor employed suffered from multiple interacting disadvantages, including poor health, low incomes, and sociodemographic characteristics which contributed to difficulty in obtaining employment. Copyright @ 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.
Bibliography Citation
Waldron, Ingrid, Mary Elizabeth Hughes and Tracy L. Brooks. "Marriage Protection and Marriage Selection--Prospective Evidence for Reciprocal Effects of Marital Status and Health." Social Science and Medicine 43,1 (July 1996): 113-123.
2. Waldron, Ingrid
Weiss, Christopher C.
Hughes, Mary Elizabeth
Interacting Effects of Multiple Roles on Women's Health
Presented: Washington, DC, Population Association of America Meetings, March 1997
Cohort(s): Young Women
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Employment; Health Factors; Health/Health Status/SF-12 Scale; Marital Status; Marriage; Maternal Employment; Motherhood; Women's Roles

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

This study evaluates the effects of employment, marriage, and motherhood on women's general physical health. We analyze prospective panel data from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Young Women. The women were aged 24-34 at the beginning of two successive five-year follow-up intervals. Our findings indicate that employment had beneficial effects on health primarily for women who were not married, and marriage had beneficial effects on health-primarily for women who were not employed. It appears that being employed and/or married has beneficial health effects because either role can increase income and social support and reduce psychological distress. The health effects of being a mother appeared to vary, depending on the ages of the children and several characteristics of the mothers. Our findings provide almost no support for the Role Strain Hypothesis and only limited support for the Role Accumulaffon Hypothesis Instead, it appears that multiple roles have vari able effe cts on women's health, depending on the specific role combinations, role characteristics, and the women's characteristics.
Bibliography Citation
Waldron, Ingrid, Christopher C. Weiss and Mary Elizabeth Hughes. "Interacting Effects of Multiple Roles on Women's Health." Presented: Washington, DC, Population Association of America Meetings, March 1997.
3. Waldron, Ingrid
Weiss, Christopher C.
Hughes, Mary Elizabeth
Interacting Effects of Multiple Roles on Women's Health
Journal of Health and Social Behavior 39,3 (September 1998): 216-236.
Also: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2676314
Cohort(s): Young Women
Publisher: American Sociological Association
Keyword(s): Age at First Birth; Childbearing, Adolescent; Employment; Health/Health Status/SF-12 Scale; Marital Status; Marriage; Motherhood; Women's Roles; Women's Studies

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Our study tests several hypotheses concerning the effects of employment, marriage, and motherhood on women 's general physical health. These hypotheses predict how the health effect of each role varies, depending on specific role characteristics and the other roles a woman holds. Our analyses utilize longitudinal panel data for 3,331 women from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Young Women follow-up intervals: 1978-83 and 1983-88. The Role Substitution Hypothesis proposes that employment and marriage provide similar resources (e.g., income and social support), and, consequently, employment and marriage can substitute for each other in their beneficial effects on health. As predicted, we found that employment had beneficial effects on health for unmarried women, but little or no effect for married women. Similarly, marriage had beneficial effects on health only for women who were not employed. The Role Combination Strain Hypothesis proposes that employed mothers experience role strai n, resulting in harmful effects on health. However, we found very little evidence that the combination of employment and motherhood resulted in harmful health effects. Contrary to the predictions of the Quantitative Demands Role Strain Hypothesis, it appears that neither longer hours of employment nor having more children resulted in harmful effects on health. As predicted by the Age Related Parental Role Strain Hypothesis, younger age at first birth, particularly a teenage birth, appeared to result in more harmful health effects.
Bibliography Citation
Waldron, Ingrid, Christopher C. Weiss and Mary Elizabeth Hughes. "Interacting Effects of Multiple Roles on Women's Health." Journal of Health and Social Behavior 39,3 (September 1998): 216-236.
4. Waldron, Ingrid
Weiss, Christopher C.
Hughes, Mary Elizabeth
Marital Status Effects on Health - Are There Differences Between Never Married Women and Divorced and Separated Women?
Social Science and Medicine 45,9 (November 1997): 1387-1397.
Also: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953697000658
Cohort(s): Young Women
Publisher: Elsevier
Keyword(s): Divorce; Health Factors; Health/Health Status/SF-12 Scale; Marital Stability; Marital Status

To test whether the effects of marital status on health differ between never married women and divorced and separated women, this study utilizes prospective panel data for a large national sample of non-institutionalized young women in the U. S. (the National Longitudinal Surveys of Young Women). The women were aged 24-34 at the beginning of two successive five-year follow-up intervals (1978-1983 and 1983-1988). The health effects of marital status were evaluated in regressions which assessed the relationships between initial marital status and subsequent health trends in each follow-up interval. In the first follow-up interval, never married women tended to have worse health trends than divorced and separated women for physical impairments and for overall health problems. However, there were no differences between never married women and divorced and separated women in health trends for psychosomatic symptoms in either follow-up interval or for any health measure in the sec ond follow-up interval. Our analyses of cross-sectional data showed few significant differences in health between never married women and divorced and separated women. Taken together, the evidence from our study and previous studies suggests that differences between never married women and divorced and separated women may vary by age and/or cohort. Evidence for the 1970s and 1980s suggests that, among older women, divorced and separated women may have experienced more harmful health effects than never married women; however, among younger women, this difference may have been absent or possibly reversed.
Bibliography Citation
Waldron, Ingrid, Christopher C. Weiss and Mary Elizabeth Hughes. "Marital Status Effects on Health - Are There Differences Between Never Married Women and Divorced and Separated Women?" Social Science and Medicine 45,9 (November 1997): 1387-1397.