GRAM

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Information

Period

2020-2022/2023

Funder

The Swedish Research Council (VR)

Amount

€ 393 000

Project members

• Ylva B Almquist | Stockholm University (PI)
• Lisa Berg | Stockholm University
• Baojing Li | Stockholm University
• Can Liu | Stockholm University

Status

Completed

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Project aim

This project aims to examine the extent to which social, economic, and health-related adversities are transmitted across multiple generations – from parents, to children, to grandchildren – and whether processes reflecting resilience may break this reproduction of inequality. Based on genealogical microdata from Sweden for a cohort of 14,608 men and women born in 1953 as well as their parents and children, we apply gender-sensitive statistical models to study how adult adversity in each generation translates into adolescent adversity in each following generation. Moreover, we consider a range of resilience indicators in the intermediate generation that may protect them against the transmission of adversity from their parents, and potentially also reduce the risk of adversity in the subsequent generation. The project is estimated to run for four years and result in high-quality publications in international, peer-reviewed journals. While anchored in sociology, the project team is composed of researchers with varying disciplinary backgrounds, active within as well as outside academia. By focusing on resilience indicators in adolescence that are modifiable and derived from contexts outside the individuals and their families – such as the school – the results of the project will be of great relevance for interventions that aim to improve the life chances of vulnerable groups as well as for policies targeted at decreasing inequality at the societal level.

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A summary of our results

The results from this project suggest that experiences of being placed in out-of-home care, such as foster homes or institutions, tend to follow families from one generation to the next. Our research also indicates that mental health issues in one generation can increase the risk for subsequent generations to be placed in out-of-home care, while there is no strong evidence that placement in out-of-home care in turn increases the risk of mental health issues for the descendants.

The project further focused on the complex relationships between socioeconomic conditions and mental health over time. The findings suggest that adverse socioeconomic conditions are often passed down through the paternal line, affecting both sons and daughters. However, mental health issues tend to be transmitted only to sons, through both paternal and maternal lines. Additionally, mental health problems in grandparents contribute to worse economic conditions for the following generations.

It also becomes clear that adverse socioeconomic and psychosocial living conditions tend to cluster within each generation and, subsequently, increase the risk of mental health issues among descendants. However, this risk decreases if the family’s living conditions improve across generations.

Another important discovery is that the adverse conditions of grandparents affect the grandchildren’s risk of mental health issues partly through the parents’ conditions. However, there is a direct effect that cannot be explained solely through the parents’ situation, suggesting that there are additional pathways through which older generations’ living conditions can affect future generations.

The knowledge from this project can help develop targeted interventions that break the negative cycle of adverse living conditions and mental health that spans generations. By understanding how these patterns repeat, the welfare state can better support vulnerable families and prevent adverse conditions from being passed on. This, in turn, contributes to a society where an individual’s life chances are not determined by their parents’ or grandparents’ circumstances.

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Publications

1. Li, B., Almquist, Y. B., Liu, C., & Berg, L. (2023). Psychiatric disorders following the clustering of family disadvantages in previous generations. European Journal of Public Health, 33(Supplement_2), https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/ckad160.336
2. Li, B., Almquist. Y. B., Liu, C., & Berg L. (2023). Disentangling the multigenerational transmissions of socioeconomic disadvantages and mental health problems by gender and across lineages: Findings from the Stockholm Birth Cohort Multigenerational Study. European Psychiatry. 66(S1):S63-S64. https://doi.org/10.1192/j.eurpsy.2023.223
3. Li, B., Almquist, Y. B., Liu, C., & Berg, L. (2023). Disentangling the multigenerational transmissions of socioeconomic disadvantages and mental health problems by gender and across lineages: Findings from the Stockholm Birth Cohort Multigenerational Study. SSM-Population Health, 22, 101357. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2023.101357
4. Li, B., Almquist, Y., Liu, C., Berg, L. (2023). Disentangling the multigenerational transmissions of socioeconomic disadvantages and mental health problems by gender and across lineages: findings from the Stockholm Birth cohort multigenerational study. Population Medicine, 5(Supplement), A781. https://doi.org/10.18332/popmed/165736
5. Straatmann, V. S., Jackisch, J., Brännström, L., & Almquist, Y. B. (2021). Intergenerational transmission of out-of-home care and the role of mental health problems: Findings from Stockholm birth cohort multigenerational study. Social Science & Medicine, 284, 114223. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114223
6. Straatmann, V. S., Jackisch, J., Brännström, L., & Almquist, Y. B. (2022). Associations between out-of-home care and mental health disorders within and across generations in a Swedish birth cohort. SSM-Population Health, 18, 101115. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2022.101115

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