Pathways to Well-Being in Later Life: Socioeconomic and Health Determinants Across the Life Course of Australian Baby Boomers

Abstract

In many countries like Australia and the United States, baby boomers are referred to as the ‘lucky cohort’, yet there has been little research on the origins and extent of inequalities within this cohort. This study uses path analysis to investigate direct and indirect effects of childhood and adult socioeconomic status and health on two subjective well-being measures: quality of life and life satisfaction. Retrospective life course data were obtained for 1,261 people aged 60 to 64 in the 2011–12 Life Histories and Health survey, a sub-study of the Australian 45 and Up Study. Supporting an accumulation model, the number of negative childhood and adult exposures were inversely related to both types of well-being. Consistent with a critical period model, childhood exposures had small but significant effects on subjective well-being and were relatively more important for quality of life than for life satisfaction. However, these childhood effects were largely indirect and significantly mediated by more proximal adult exposures, providing support for a pathway model. A key implication of this research is that the critical period for later life well-being is significant in adulthood rather than childhood, suggesting that there may be key opportunities for improving individuals’ later life well-being far beyond the early, formative years. This research highlights the importance of understanding how earlier life exposures impact experiences in later life, and investing in health and socioeconomic opportunities to reduce inequalities across all stages of life.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s12062-015-9132-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Childhood socioeconomic position and adult mental wellbeing: Evidence from four British birth cohort studies

“…Previous studies have shown inconsistencies in the association between childhood SEP and adult mental wellbeing [ 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 15 , 16 ], which could have been due to modification of this association by country, cohort or age, or because of the different measures of wellbeing and SEP utilised. Our findings used harmonised data on the wellbeing outcome and the SEP exposures and yet we still found differences across these four studies set in Britain, which is suggestive of cohort or age differences.…”

“…Two studies, both using data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement (SHARE), found an association between more disadvantaged childhood SEP and lower life satisfaction at older ages (50 years and older) that persisted after adjusting for adult circumstances, such as education, income, employment and partnership status [ 10 ] [ 11 ]. One study of Australian baby-boomers in the early sixties [ 12 ] and one of people in their mid-30s living in Britain [ 13 ] have found that the association between childhood SEP and adult wellbeing was fully attenuated by adjustment for adult SEP, thus suggesting that socioeconomic disadvantage in childhood sets the course for a disadvantaged trajectory during adulthood which can then affect wellbeing [ 14 ].…”

Childhood correlates of adult positive mental well-being in three British longitudinal studies

“…Positive parenting in early childhood is associated with better quality adult relationships for their offspring, 13 31 better adult socioeconomic position (SEP) 32 and lower risk of adult mental disorder 33 all of which are associated with adult mental well-being. 34 35 Parental mental ill health was also independently associated with poorer adult mental well-being. One possible explanatory pathway is through childhood and adolescent mental health.…”

Fertility trajectories and later-life depression among parents in England

“…Childhood socio-economic position (SEP), as distinct from specific adversities, is also associated with later-life depression. Again, some studies suggest lasting direct effects (Luo and Waite 2005;Schaan 2014) whereas others indicate that associations are mediated by educational attainment, adult SEP, and adult social resources (Nicholson et al 2008;Kamiya et al 2013;Kendig et al 2015).…”