Table 2.
Spousal and Young Adult Neighbor Correlations in Later-Life Health Status
| All Adulthood yrs (35+) | Age 35-55 | Over 55 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
||||||
| Spousal Correlation |
Young Adult Neighbor Correlation |
Spousal Correlation |
Young Adult Neighbor Correlation |
Spousal Correlation |
Young Adult Neighbor Correlation |
|
| Unconditional | 0.4598 (0.0067) |
0.3313 (0.0077) |
0.4718 (0.0068) |
0.3485 (0.0085) |
0.3771 (0.0089) |
0.3060 (0.0089) |
| Adjusted* (net of residential sorting of HHs w/similar family bckgrd) |
-- | 0.2677 | ||||
| Conditional, control for childhood SES | 0.3605 (0.0075) |
0.1988 (0.0083) |
0.3739 (0.0076) |
0.2116 (0.0098) |
0.2593 (0.0098) |
0.1592 (0.0095) |
| Conditional, control for childhood + young adult family/neighborhood factors |
0.2760 (0.0080) |
0.1287 (0.0079) |
0.3003 (0.0081) |
0.1409 (0.0094) |
0.1658 (0.0104) |
0.0880 (0.0093) |
To compute the adjusted neighbor correlations, we first estimated within-neighborhood estimates of the effects of family income, education, race, family structure, health insurance coverage, health behaviors, connectedness to informal sources of help and housing quality on health in adulthood. Then, we used the within-neighborhood estimates of the later-life health effects of this array of family characteristics to assess how much of the raw neighbor correlation is due to young adult neighbors having similar (observable) family characteristics as opposed to neighborhood effects per se . The estimation procedures are described in detail in the methods section of the paper. (The full model results used to compute the adjusted neighbor correlations are not shown to conserve space, but are available from the authors upon request).