Men’s health and intergenerational living arrangements in Russia: Causal and selection effects

Presenter: Natalia Permyakova, University of Southampton

Research finds evidence of both protective and damaging health effects of intergenerational living arrangements (ILA), but it is unclear whether relationships are due to factors that lead to ILA or consequences of ILA as selection is often not controlled for. This study aims to explore whether ILA affects health by disentangling causal and selection processes related to the health status of adults when living with older generations (parents/grandparents/parents-in-law). We focus exclusively on Russian men, who have unusually high mortality and poor health in a context where one third of households are intergenerational. Using household panel data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (1994-2015), this paper addresses the following questions: is living in an ILA beneficial for men’s health and does this depend on whether the older generation is in poor health? Does the relationship persist or change once we account for selection into/out of ILA? Fixed-effects time-series logistic regression models predicting ‘good’ self-rated health status reveal that men’s health suffers when co-residing with unhealthy older generations, whether continuously co-residing (OR=0.49, CI 95% 0.38-0.63) or beginning to co-reside (OR=0.64, CI 95% 0.44-0.93). We interpret this finding to mean that the presence of a co-residing ill older generation increases stress due to shared exposure or increased demands on resources and the possible burden of care provision. After controlling for selection into and out of ILA, our results suggest that those living with unhealthy older kin are vulnerable in terms of their health trajectories over time which has implications for health service provision.