The Childhood Echo: How Romantic Biographies Reflect Early Life Events and Abilities

Miika Mäki , Population Research Institute
Mikko Myrskylä, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research and London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)
Anna Erika Hägglund, PostDoctoral Researcher
Sangita Kulathinal, Department of Food and Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki
Anna Rotkirch, Väestöliitto

OBJECTIVE: We examined how childhood experiences predicted the development of romantic partnership trajectories and how personal characteristics moderated the relationship. BACKGROUND: Childhood experiences are linked with a variety of adult outcomes. Our understanding of how different childhood experiences foreshadow romantic biographies has been limited. METHOD: We drew upon retrospective interviews from the Survey of Health Ageing, and Retirement in Europe (N=26 469) and employed Latent Class Growth Modelling to construct romantic biography typologies between ages 15-50. We assessed how childhood experiences predicted arriving at different trajectory typologies with Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Multinomial Logistic Regression. RESULTS: Positive childhood experiences were associated with a higher likelihood of belonging to trajectories characterized by stable first marriages, negative experiences with all other types of trajectories. Among women, individuals with high socio-cognitive capabilities appeared to be less susceptible to positive or negative experiences. CONCLUSION: Our results underscore the enduring link between childhood experiences and romantic relationship biographies, independently of socioeconomic background. The findings align in part with the resource substitution theory, demonstrating that deficits in certain resources may be compensated for by other assets.

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 Presented in Session 84. Flash session Life Course