As described in chapter x there are many socioeconomic variables that can be applied to rank the individuals from poorest to richest in the concentration index. For the sake of this thesis, the variable total household income after taxes is used. For both the 2005 data and the 2012 data the income is adjusted for purchasing power. Statistics Norway’s (SSB) consumer price
14e.g., The SCL-25 (Hopkins Symptom Check List), used to measure the psychological distress, consisting of 25 questions where answers are ranked from 1 to 4. For this scale, 1 indicates “not at all” and 4 responds to
“extremely”, with 2 and 3 falling somewhere between these two extremes. A cut-off value of 1.75 is then applied as a valid indicator of mental disorder as assessed independently by clinical interview (Strand, Dalgard, Tambs, &
Rognerud, 2003, p. 114).
15e.g., one of the questions from SCL-10 is ‘Have you, during the last week, experienced sudden fear without reason?’, and the answer alternatives are 1= ‘not bothered’, 2 = ‘slightly bothered’, 3= ‘very bothered’, and 4=
‘extremely bothered’ (Strand et al., 2003). If the population mean for this question is 2.5 what does this entail?
What is the mean of ‘slightly bothered’ and ‘very bothered’? How much larger is this than ‘not bothered’? These questions are, if not impossible, very difficult to answer, and thus, in the strictest sense, the statistics are
nonsensical (Jamieson, 2004; Stevens, 1946).
index is used to adjust the respective incomes to NOK 2019. Further, the income is
“equivalized” by taking the square root of the total number of household members. A method applied by OECD in recent years (OECD, 2008). While this form of ‘equalization’ does not differ between adults and children, it does assume that larger households might have greater financial needs, and as such accounts for the size of the household. The ‘equalized’ and purchasing power adjusted variable is labeled infadjinc.
The natural logarithm of the equivalized purchasing power adjusted income variable, lninfadjinc, is included in the decomposition. In Currie’s model (see chapter X) material inputs that affect health enters the production of child health. In the family investment model (see section Y) higher income is assumed to buy material good or access to activities that may enhance the child’s cognitive development. As the material goods, or access to activities, are subject to the budget constraint, an increase in the available income may positively affect the child’s health. The log of income is used as this is often applied when examining the
relationship between income and health, and viewing income as a proportional change (i.e., +2 %) is closer connected to the real world than viewing it as a linear change (+ NOK 2,-) (Carrieri & Jones, 2017).
6.5.2 Education:
Instead of using the parental figure’s education, the highest level of educational attainment in the household is used. This means that the educational level could be attributed to the
interview object (i.e., the ‘parental figure’), their spouse or other members of the household.
The original data is coded in 9 levels16, this division is simplified in this thesis.
The 2012 dataset included a variable for highest level of attained education in the household (utdnivaa_h). For 155 observations the highest attained education was listed as “unspecified”, even if there were individuals in the household with higher levels of specified education (i.e., lower university degrees, higher university degrees and Ph.D’s). To correct for this, the
16 0 = no education, 1 = primary school (‘barneskole’), 2= lower secondary (‘ungdomsskole’), 3 = upper
highest level of educational attainment in the household not equal to “unspecified” was used to indicate educational status. In the cases where no other educational attainment was listed for any members of household, or all individuals were coded as “unspecified”, this was recorded as the highest level of education. As a result, there are a total of 27 observations denoted by the binary variable uspeced, when taking into account interview objects from both surveys.
Other levels of educational attainment are also included in the decomposition. scndry denotes upper levels of secondary and vocational school, unilwr captures educational attainment up to four years of university or college. Finally, unihi denotes households where an individual has attained a masters or Ph.D level of education.
6.5.3 Other explanatory variables
As mentioned in subchapter 3.3, peer relationships and social interactions are important for the child’s mental health. To see if there is an association between the mental distress score and interpersonal relationships the variables locfriends, bullied are included in the
decomposition. Locfriends (local friends) indicates whether the child has any good friends in the area they live and bullied indicated whether the child has been bullied in the past six months. As these variables fit within the framework of environmental risk/preventive factors, chidisabill and xtracarechild are included to highlight some of the individual risk factors that may affect the child’s mental health. Chidisabill indicates whether the child has any illnesses, injuries or disabilities that are assumed to be permanent, and xtracarechild indicates whether the child has illnesses or disabilities that results in the child needing extra care, supervision or help to complete day to day tasks.
As interpersonal relationships and the environment the child is raised in may have an effect on the child’s mental health, the parental figure’s support network might function as a mitigating factor for the parents if they were to experience stressors that could again affect the child. To capture this the variable confidants is included as an explanatory variable indicating whether the IO has anyone they can talk to or confide in.
Family relationships are highlighted as important environmental determinant for the child’s mental health. To capture the parental figure’s mental health the variable depression is included in the decomposition, indicating whether the parental figure has experienced any depression in the past three months. The disintegration of marriage and/or conflicted family relations might also affect the child’s mental health, the variables married, widow and sepdiv are therefor included. The latter indicating whether the individual is currently separated or divorced, and widow indicating whether the person is a widow/widower. The variable biochild is included to help explain the family’s structure, indicating whether the child the parental figures biological child, or not.
The survey data is sampled from throughout Norway, and as a result, the living conditions are not the same for everyone. To see if there are any associations between living conditions and mental health the variable denspop is included to indicate if the child lives in a densely
populated area17. In addition, the variables E_Nor, W_Nor, M_Nor, S_Nor, N-Nor, and akhosl are included to, respectively, indicate whether IO lives in the eastern, western, mid, south or north part of Norway, or if IO lives in Akershus/Oslo18. It is assumed that the child has the same place of residence as the IO.
Finally, age and gender for both the parental figure and child are included as explanatory variables. Parental age is grouped as 16-24, 25-44, 45-66 and 67-79 while children are grouped as 6-7, 8-9, 10-11, 12-13 and 14-15, with ages 6-7 functioning as the baselevel
7 Descriptive Statistics
The following chapter includes descriptive statistics for the data included in the analysis.
17 Statistics Norway (SSB) has defined «densely populated” (NW: tettsted) as a collection of houses where at least 200 people live, and the distance between houses usually doesn’t exceed 50 meters(Statistics Norway, 2020).