A Life Course Approach to Inequality: Examining Racial/Ethnic Differences in the Relationship between Early Life Socioeconomic Conditions and Health in Later Life Among Men

Objective: Previous research has docu­mented a relationship between childhood socioeconomic conditions and adult health, but less is known about racial/ethnic dif­ferences in this relationship, particularly among men. This study utilizes a life course approach to investigate racial/ethnic differ­ences in the relationships among early and later life socioeconomic circumstances and health in adulthood among men.Design: Panel data from the Health and Retirement Study and growth curve models are used to examine group differences in the relationships among childhood and adult socioeconomic factors and age-tra­jectories of self-rated health among White, Black and Mexican American men aged 51-77 years (N=4147).Results: Multiple measures of childhood socioeconomic status (SES) predict health in adulthood for White men, while significant­ly fewer measures of childhood SES predict health for Black and Mexican American men. Moreover, the health consequences of childhood SES diminish with age for Black and Mexican American men. The child­hood SES-adult health relationship is largely explained by measures of adult SES for White men.Conclusion: The life course pathways link­ing childhood SES and adult health differ by race/ethnicity among men. Similar to argu­ments that the universality of the adult SES-health relationship should not be assumed, results from our study suggest that scholars should not assume that the significance and nature of the association between child­hood SES and health in adulthood is similar across race/ethnicity among men. Ethn Dis.2015;25(3):313-320.