The long-lasting effects of family and childhood on adult wellbeing: Evidence from British cohort data

Abstract

To what extent do childhood experiences continue to affect adult wellbeing over the life course? Previous work on this link has been carried out either at one particular adult age or for some average of adulthood. We here use two British birth-cohort datasets (the 1958 NCDS and the 1970 BCS) to map out the time profile of the effect of childhood on adult outcomes, including life satisfaction. We find that the effect of many aspects of childhood do not fade away over time, but are rather remarkably stable. In both birth cohorts child non-cognitive skills are the strongest predictors of adult life satisfaction at all ages. Of these, emotional health is the strongest. Childhood cognitive performance is more important than good conduct in explaining adult life satisfaction in the earlier cohort, whereas this ranking is inverted in the more recent BCS.

Childhood circumstances and young adulthood outcomes: The role of mothers' financial problems

“…https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7004-7654 Conchita D'Ambrosio https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8469-6126 1 In the spirit of Pradhan and Ravallion (2000), who use information on the perceived adequacy of household consumption to create poverty lines. 2 Childhood emotional health is the most important predictor of life satisfaction at all adult ages in both the British Cohort Study (BCS) and the National Child Development Study (NCDS): see Clark et al (2018), Layard et al (2014) and Flèche, Lekfuangfu, and Clark (2020). 3 The United States is no exception in this respect: 46.1 percent of those in work in the EU in 2018 were women, nearly 60% of EU university graduates are women and a majority of women with children (61%) are also breadwinners or co-breadwinners.…”

“…This large-scale birth-cohort data follows children over a period of more than two decades. For each of the child's first 11 years we know whether the mother 1 Childhood emotional health is the most important predictor of life satisfaction at all adult ages in both the British Cohort Study (BCS) and the National Child Development Study (NCDS): see Clark et al (2018), Layard et al (2014) and Flèche et al (2019). 2 The US is no exception in this respect: 46.1 percent of those in work in the EU in 2018 were women, nearly 60 percent of EU university graduates are women and a majority of women with children (61 percent) are also breadwinners or co-breadwinners.…”

“…2 2 Childhood emotional health is the most important predictor of life satisfaction at all adult ages in both the British Cohort Study (BCS) and the National Child Development Study (NCDS): see Clark et al (2018), Layard et al (2014) and Flèche, Lekfuangfu, and Clark (2020). …”

Till death (or divorce) do us part: Early-life family disruption and investment behavior

“…Evidence from developmental psychology indicates that experiencing early-life family disruption has extremely long-lasting effects on personality and well-being (Amato and Keith, 1991;Tennant, 1991;Parsons, 2011;Ellis, Dowrick, and Lloyd-Williams, 2013;Flèche, Lekfuangfu, and Clark, 2019). Medical research suggests channels that drive these long-term effects: Parental death and divorce in childhood increase psychological distress in adulthood due to a dysregulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which increases individuals' cortisol levels (e.g., Nicolson, 2004;Bloch et al, 2007).…”

Peer victimisation during adolescence and its impact on wellbeing in adulthood: A prospective cohort study.

“…Recent research aimed at understanding predictors of wellbeing in adulthood have provided insight into the importance of childhood and adolescence [20] [21]. Adolescence is a key developmental period, characterised by several physiological, cognitive, and emotional changes that are likely to impact how individuals handle and respond to events in their environment [22].…”