Health consequences of social-role careers for women: a life-course perspective.

This study aimed to demonstrate the importance of early adulthood social-role participation in determining the health of women over the life course. It used Australian Family Project data from a nationally representative proportional stratified sample of 1-in-1000 women aged between 20 and 59 years in 1986-87 (n = 1678); and data from a follow-up survey conducted in 1990 using project participants who were living in Sydney at the time of the baseline (n = 291). Social-role participation was measured over each participant's life using retrospective histories of employment, marital status and parental status. Validity and reliability tests supported the use of these histories. Health was measured by retrospective accounts of serious chronic disease onset and indicators of self-rated health. After considering a broad range of confounders, early adulthood social-role careers were found to vary significantly in their risk of serious chronic disease and levels of self-rated health. These findings suggest that the influence of society's social structures on health for women goes beyond causes related to conventional socioeconomic differentials or arbitrary periods of social-role participation. The nature of the associations are complex and dynamic, involving both the mixture and timing of social events and transitions. This conclusion supports a life-course approach in which social careers are perceived as cumulative, providing women with lessons, liabilities and resources that influence the way they age and meet the realities of life.