Women’s economic activity trajectories over the life course: implications for the self-rated health of women aged 64+ in England

Background Previous research has highlighted theimportance of accumulated life-course labour marketstatus and the balancing of multiple roles forunderstanding inequalities in health in later life. Thismay be particularly important for women, who areincreasingly required to balance work and family life inliberal welfare contexts, such as in Britain.Methods This study analyses retrospective life historydata for 2160 women aged 64+ years (born 1909–1943) from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing,collected in 2006–2007 as part of an ongoing panelstudy. Optimal matching and cluster analyses are used toproduce a taxonomy of women’s life-course economicactivity trajectories based on their experiences betweenages 16 and 64 years. This classification is then used inlogistic regression analysis to investigate associationswith self-rated health in later life.Results A set of five trajectories emerge as thedominant patterns of women’s economic activity overthe life course for those cohorts of English women bornprior to 1943: (1) full-time workers; (2) family carers; (3)full-time returners; (4) part-time returners; (5) atypical/inactive. Regression analyses show that women whoexperience defined periods of full-time work both beforeand after focusing on family life appear to have the mostfavourable later life health outcomes.Conclusions The findings are discussed with referenceto the accumulation of social and economic resourcesover the life course and the balancing of multiple rolesin work and family domains. In conclusion, thedevelopment of policies that facilitate women, if theywish, to successfully combine paid employment withfamily life coul