The economic and social value of health from childhood to later life UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies

While much is known about the impact of socioeconomic factors on health, there are gaps in knowledge about the impact of an individual’s health on their economic and social status.

This project assessed the causal impact of physical and mental health on educational and employment outcomes. It took a life-course approach, using rich, longitudinal data, and used indicators of health status from childhood to mid-life to predict subsequent outcomes.

The outcomes examined included educational development and attainment (cognitive scores, qualifications); economic outcomes (employment status, earnings, social class); and socio-emotional outcomes (childhood behaviour, quality of life, social support, marital/partnership status). The knowledge produced by the project spans a range of areas of pressing interest for policy, including young people’s emotional and behavioural problems, education and employment, mental health, the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, and menopause.

Key findings

• Behavioural and emotional problems in early childhood have wide-ranging negative outcomes on later emotional and behavioural adjustment, vocabulary acquisition in adolescence, and employment rates throughout the life course.
• People with a history of poor mental health prior to the COVID-19 pandemic had a greater risk of poor mental health, loneliness and negative economic outcomes during the pandemic, and were financially worse off.
• Early menopause (before the age of 45) was less likely for women with high childhood cognitive scores and those who exercised regularly, and more likely for smokers. Early menopause and menopause symptoms were found to have a significant effect on employment rates in women in their 50s.

The project has provided new information on the causal links between health and educational, occupational and social outcomes. These findings are helping inform policymaking and future population-based interventions to promote healthy development and healthy ageing.

The project team has shared the findings widely and engaged policymakers including NHS England and the Department for Education.

Contact details

Questions? Please contact Alice Sullivan, Professor of Sociology at the UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies.

Learn more

For more information about this project, please see the resources below:

The relationship between child behaviour problems at school entrance and teenage vocabulary acquisition: A comparison of two generations of British children born 30 years apart

The role of parental and child physical and mental health on behavioural and emotional adjustment in mid-childhood: a comparison of two generations of British children born 30 years apart

Does pain lead to job loss? A panel study for Germany

Teenage conduct problems: a lifetime of disadvantage in the labour market?

Risk factors for early natural menopause: evidence from the 1958 and 1970 British birth cohorts

The consequences of early menopause and menopause symptoms for labour market participation

Unemployment disrupts sleep: evidence from the United States and Europe

Biden, COVID and mental health in America

The consequences of chronic pain in mid-life: evidence from the National Child Development Survey

Association between psychological distress trajectories from adolescence to midlife and mental health during the pandemic: evidence from two British birth cohorts (2021)

Risk factors for natural menopause before the age of 45: evidence from two British population-based birth cohort studies