Paper in collaboration with @rannveigkhart.bsky.social, @hfsunde.bsky.social, @neilmdavies.bsky.social , and @torvik.bsky.social.

Key insights (2/2)
• 10 years later, employed grandmothers are 12% less likely to work full-time, compared to a 2% reduction for grandfathers. Women also see larger income drops.
• The gendered patterns in infections + employment suggest women still are more involved in informal childcare provision.

Key insights (1/2)
• Respiratory infections jump in the first years of grandparenthood: +56% for women, +31% for men
• Grandparents are slightly less likely to see a doctor for mental disorders (−4.5%) & cardiovascular issues (−3.3%)
• Grandmothers have fewer musculoskeletal-related visits (−3.8%)

a sense of purpose, and may increase one's social network (e.g. meeting other parents, teachers etc). These factors could be protective in terms of mental health. I want to emphasise though that we cannot conclude about mechanisms based on our data. (2/2)

Personally, I think both selection into parenthood and "lifestyle effects" of parenthood are possible explanations. It's not random who becomes a parent, parents typically are healthier. At the same time, parenthood also often results in a need for structure and routines in daily life, gives (1/2)

Good question! Unfortunately, from the data we cannot know why people do/don’t see their GP. However, it seems unlikely that children keep parents too busy to visit their doctor at all ages (incl 50+). Parents also had a higher risk of certain symptoms, suggesting they don’t avoid seeing their GP.

Absolutely! Unfortunately we don’t have health care records that stretch long enough to look at mental illness in early life. But we could (and did) control for marital status. Regardless of controls though, we cannot conclude about causality. So we see selection into parenthood as a key factor.

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🙋🏻‍♀️ I’m an interdisciplinary social scientist with an econ/psychology background. www.fhi.no/en/ab/depart...

Also happy to be included! I work on socio-economic inequalities in health in Norway.

🙋🏻‍♀️ (if there’s still room!) I do research on the drivers of mental health inequalities using population registry data📉

Overall, parenthood appears to be an important indicator of mental health inequalities in the Norwegian population. Its growing importance may suggest stronger selection into parenthood across time and cohorts.

#MedSky #PublicHealth #MentalHealth

Key insights (2/2):

• From 2006 to 2019, the mental health gap between parents and the childless has widened significantly
• Not all diagnoses and symptoms were negatively associated with parenthood; parents had higher odds of certain adverse mental health outcomes

Key insights (1/2):

• Sibling- and twin-matched analyses were largely consistent with population-based results
• The difference in mental health was especially large for men and among those with only compulsory education

🙋🏻‍♀️ And thanks for making this!!