Thursday, October 3, 2019, 3:30 pm to 5:00 pm., Gross Hall 270
DUPRI presents two individual lectures for the Demography of Aging Training Seminar:
1) Molly Copeland, PhD Candidate, Department of Sociology, Duke University
Title: When the Ties that Bind Cut: Self-harm and Peer Networks in Adolescence
Self-harm is a critical health risk in adolescence, a life course stage when peers are important for healthy development. Theory suggests adolescents self-harm to quell mental distress and to meet explicitly social objectives, both functions that can be shaped by peer networks. To date, however, no study has systematically examined how self-harm relates to social integration. Here, I examine how and why some peer network features protect adolescents from self-harm while others increase risk using PROSPER survey data (n=25,006 person-waves) of high school adolescents. I examine the relationship between self-harm and multiple measures of social networks, moderated by gender and peer self-harm, net of depressive symptoms. I find that self-harm is largely unrelated to social position for boys. For girls, however, greater integration among close friends and the overall peer network is associated with lower self-harm, unless friends are harming, then greater integration predicts higher self-harm. These results indicate that structures of cohesive close friendships and status among peers reduce self-harm risks for girls only in contexts where integration does not further reinforce habits of harming peers.
2) Samuel H. Fishman, PhD, Postdoctoral Associate, Department of Sociology, Duke University
Title: Maternal age at Birth and Offspring’s Education and Health Outcomes: Reviewing Past Research and Future Directions
Early and late maternal age at birth is tightly correlated with negative offspring education and health outcomes. Yet, prior work has not determined if this relationship is causal or driven by selection. Recent European research using Scandinavian register data and sibling models suggests that most—if not all—of this association is driven by selection rather than causal associations. Unfortunately, US research on this topic is severely limited by data quality. This presentation outlines my prior and future efforts to examine the relationship between maternal age at birth and offspring’s education and health outcomes using several US data sources, including the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health and linked birth records and education files from North Carolina.