Life-course transitions, socio-economic status and health behaviours

Different groups of people act in different ways that may affect their health. This may be explained by two mechanisms. Whereas the causation mechanism suggests that people’s socio-economic and socio-demographic positions cause changes in health behaviors, the selection mechanism states that those who behave unhealthily sort into certain socio-economic and socio-demographic positions. In this project, we try to understand these mechanisms by studying what impact life-course transitions, such as divorcing or becoming unemployed, have on health behaviors. We use longitudinal data from the Lifelines study to investigate how life-course transitions impact health behaviors alongside more stable socio-economic characteristics.