Childhood socioeconomic status, adulthood obesity and health: The role of parental permanent and transitory income

Children from low SES backgrounds experience long-term economic deprivation in addition to excessive income volatility during childhood. Little is known about whether parental income influences adulthood weight and health through either prolonged or transitory hardship. Using the intergenerational feature of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), we link parents’ income records from a 47-year panel (1968–2015 waves) to health outcomes of 3976 adult children (1999–2015 waves) in the United States. We calculate parental permanent income to measure prolonged disadvantages, as well as transitory income peaks and valleys at various early-life stages to measure transitory advantages and disadvantages, respectively. Our findings show that parental permanent income is negatively associated with obesity and adverse health outcomes in multiple adulthood stages. We also detect negative associations between transitory income peaks in adolescence and adverse weight and health outcomes. Our findings provide strong empirical support for the influence of prolonged material hardship on adverse weight and health outcomes and no support for the influence of transitory material hardship. Our findings also show that policies that improve parental permanent income and provide higher transitory income are essential to generate healthier adults.