Health, subjective well being, and longevity are highly correlated with socioeconomic status. The proposed study will extend current research on socioeconomic influences on successful aging by testing an association of familial resource investment with health at midlife, both in general and within sib pairs. Our conceptual model is derived from economic models of health as an investment and overlapping models of life history from behavioral ecology. Investment in one's health is viewed as effort allocated to survival rather than alternate activities; allocation patterns are expected to respond to ecological (and economic) conditions. Sustained economic investment by parents (parental investment) is an important component of resource availability. Associations between resources and health outcomes will be tested via secondary analysis of data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS), an NIA-supported longitudinal study. Respondents were contacted first as high-school seniors in 1957 (n=10,317), then reassessed in 1964, 1975, and 1992. Samples of siblings were enrolled in 1977 (n=2000) amd 1993 (n=2800). The 1992/3 wave included a detailed assessment of health and health behavior.
The Specific Aims of the study are (1) To model the association of economic resources with successful aging at midlife, specifically health and subjective well being, and (2) To extend this model to differences between siblings. Socioeconomic resource measures focus on resource availability, especially intergenerational transfers from parents. Gender effects will be analyzed, since men and women typically differ in longevity, health, and life course characteristics. Economic investments and health behavior are expected to correlate with successful aging outcomes with health behavior as an intervening variable. We hypothesize that sibling differences will occur in health outcomes, which will be associated with differing histories of economic resource availability, particularly transfers from parents. In isolating sib pairs, we expect to reduce the variation in health outcomes due to shared familial factors, such as parental health, culture, ethnicity, and locale; the role of economic resources should then be clearer.
