Childhood psychological distress and youth unemployment: Evidence from two British cohort studies

Abstract

The effect of childhood mental health on later unemployment has not yet been established. In this article we assess whether childhood psychological distress places young people at high risk of subsequent unemployment and whether the presence of economic recession strengthens this relationship. This study was based on 19,217 individuals drawn from two nationally-representative British prospective cohort studies; the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England (LSYPE) and the National Child Development Study (NCDS). Both cohorts contain rich contemporaneous information detailing the participants' early life socioeconomic background, household characteristics, and physical health. In adjusted analyses in the LSYPE sample (N = 10,232) those who reported high levels of distress at age 14 were 2 percentage points more likely than those with low distress to be unemployed between ages 16 and 21. In adjusted analyses of the NCDS sample (N = 8985) children rated as having high distress levels by their teachers at age 7 and 11 were 3 percentage points more likely than those with low distress to be unemployed between ages 16 and 23. Our examination of the 1980 UK recession in the NCDS cohort found the difference in average unemployment level between those with high versus low distress rose from 2.6 pct points in the pre-recession period to 3.9 points in the post-recession period. These findings point to a previously neglected contribution of childhood mental health to youth unemployment, which may be particularly pronounced during times of economic recession. Our findings also suggest a further economic benefit to enhancing the provision of mental health services early in life.

Predictors of employment in young adults with psychiatric work disability

“…Childhood psychological distress and depression have previously been linked to youth unemployment and level of earnings in adulthood which go above the effects of distress in adulthood (Egan, Daly, & Delaney, 2015;Fletcher, 2013 Comparison of significant predictors of being employed at the end of follow-up. Odds ratios and their 95% confidence intervals adjusted for age, sex, diagnosis, vocational education and sustained employment before disability.…”

Adolescent mental health and earnings inequalities in adulthood: evidence from the Young-HUNT Study

“…There are however some limitations with these studies. First, some studies have investigated employment measured very early in adult life 16 17. To what extent these effects extend to permanent labour market outcomes, enduring over the life course is less established.…”

Adverse Childhood Experiences and Outcomes Later in Life: Evidence from SHARE Countries

“…Negative Binomial model is particularly suitable for over-dispersed count data, as in our case. Indeed, the distribution of the dependent variables is highly concentrated around zero, and the mean number of unemployment or out of the labor force spells is much lower than the variance (see Egan et al, 2015;Sturman, 1999). The formal specification of the model is described in the following equation:…”

“…To the best of our knowledge, only a few papers specifically look at the relationship between ACEs and the accumulate years or episodes of unemployment across the working career. Egan et al, (2015), for instance, use two different National surveys (i.e., the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England (LSYPE) and the National Child Development Study (NCDS)) to analyse whether childhood psychological distress places people at high risk of subsequent unemployment in the early stages of their working life. Their findings suggest the individuals who report highly distress experience accumulate more months of unemployment with respect to those who not report psychological distress.…”