Cao Rui, Reczek Rin, Thomeer Mieke Beth
Department of Sociology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA.
Department of Sociology, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.
J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci. 2025 May 8;80(6). doi: 10.1093/geronb/gbaf034.
Mothers with young children tend to have shorter sleep durations than childfree women, but previous research has not considered heterogeneity in sleep duration among midlife mothers who have varying coresidential patterns with their adult, minor, and grandchildren. We examine the distribution of sleep duration across mothers' different intergenerational coresidential contexts (living without any children, living with any minor children, living with only adult children, and living with any grandchildren) and test how these patterns differ across racial/ethnic groups.
Regression analyses estimate sleep duration among a sample of midlife mothers with minor and adult children and grandchildren from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) data (N = 3,300). Moderation analyses consider differences across racial/ethnic groups (non-Hispanic White, non-Hispanic Black, Hispanic).
Relative to the mothers with no coresiding children or grandchildren, mothers with coresiding minor or adult children reported less sleep. However, this gap varies across racial/ethnic groups; specifically, the lower sleep duration for mothers with coresidential children is only significant for White and Black mothers, not Hispanic mothers.
Sleep is a critical health indicator across the life course and a contributor to other health outcomes later in life. Thus, it is important to identify whose sleep is most vulnerable-especially in midlife when sleep trajectories are the groundwork for later-life well-being. We demonstrate the importance of coresidential status with adult and minor children and grandchildren on the sleep of mothers in midlife, drawing specific attention to the differences across racial/ethnic groups.
有年幼子女的母亲睡眠时间往往比没有孩子的女性短，但以往的研究没有考虑到中年母亲的睡眠时间异质性，这些母亲与成年子女、未成年子女和孙辈有着不同的共同居住模式。我们研究了母亲在不同代际共同居住环境（没有孩子同住、有未成年孩子同住、只有成年孩子同住、有孙辈同住）下的睡眠时间分布，并测试这些模式在不同种族/族裔群体中如何不同。
回归分析估计了1979年全国青年纵向调查（NLSY79）数据中（N = 3300）有未成年子女、成年子女和孙辈的中年母亲样本的睡眠时间。调节分析考虑了不同种族/族裔群体（非西班牙裔白人、非西班牙裔黑人、西班牙裔）之间的差异。
与没有同住子女或孙辈的母亲相比，有同住未成年或成年子女的母亲报告的睡眠时间较少。然而，这种差距在不同种族/族裔群体中有所不同；具体而言，有同住子女的母亲睡眠时间较短仅在白人和黑人母亲中显著，在西班牙裔母亲中不显著。
睡眠是贯穿生命历程的关键健康指标，也是晚年其他健康结果的一个促成因素。因此，确定哪些人的睡眠最易受影响很重要——尤其是在中年，此时睡眠轨迹是晚年幸福的基础。我们证明了与成年子女、未成年子女和孙辈的共同居住状况对中年母亲睡眠的重要性，并特别关注了不同种族/族裔群体之间的差异。
