IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v55y2002i11p1989-2004.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Childhood and adulthood risk factors for socio-economic differentials in psychological distress: evidence from the 1958 British birth cohort

Author

Listed:
  • Power, C.
  • Stansfeld, S. A.
  • Matthews, S.
  • Manor, O.
  • Hope, S.

Abstract

Social inequalities in psychological status have been attributed to health selection and to social causation. We used data from the 1958 British birth cohort, followed over three decades, to identify causes of inequality in adulthood. Psychological status prior to labour market entry influenced inter-generational mobility, but selection effects were weaker for intra-generational mobility, between age 23 and 33. However, selection failed to account for social differences in risk of distress of approximately threefold in classes IV&V compared with I&II. Both childhood and adult life factors appeared to contribute to the development of inequalities. The principal childhood factors were ability at age 7 for both sexes and adverse environment (institutional care for men and low class for women). Adult life factors varied, with stronger effects for work factors (job strain and insecurity) for men and qualifications on leaving school, early child-bearing and financial hardship for women. Gradients in psychological distress reflect the cumulative effect of multiple adversities experienced from childhood.

Suggested Citation

  • Power, C. & Stansfeld, S. A. & Matthews, S. & Manor, O. & Hope, S., 2002. "Childhood and adulthood risk factors for socio-economic differentials in psychological distress: evidence from the 1958 British birth cohort," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 55(11), pages 1989-2004, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:55:y:2002:i:11:p:1989-2004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(01)00325-2
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Riccardo Borgoni & Ann Berrington & Peter Smith, 2012. "Selecting and fitting graphical chain models to longitudinal data," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 46(3), pages 715-738, April.
    2. Grossmann, Volker & Strulik, Holger, 2021. "Illicit drugs and the decline of the middle class," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 718-743.
    3. Ambugo, Eliva A., 2014. "Cross-country variation in the sociodemographic factors associated with major depressive episode in Norway, the United Kingdom, Ghana, and Kenya," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 154-160.
    4. Anderson, Lewis Robert, 2018. "Adolescent mental health and behavioural problems, and intergenerational social mobility: A decomposition of health selection effects," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 153-160.
    5. Kumakech, Edward & Cantor-Graae, Elizabeth & Maling, Samuel & Bajunirwe, Francis, 2009. "Peer-group support intervention improves the psychosocial well-being of AIDS orphans: Cluster randomized trial," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(6), pages 1038-1043, March.
    6. Elovainio, Marko & Kivimäki, Mika & Ek, Ellen & Vahtera, Jussi & Honkonen, Teija & Taanila, Anja & Veijola, Juha & Järvelin, Marjo-Riitta, 2007. "The effect of pre-employment factors on job control, job strain and psychological distress: A 31-year longitudinal study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 187-199, July.
    7. Gustafsson, Per E. & Hammarström, Anne, 2012. "Socioeconomic disadvantage in adolescent women and metabolic syndrome in mid-adulthood: An examination of pathways of embodiment in the Northern Swedish Cohort," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(10), pages 1630-1638.
    8. Butterworth, Peter & Rodgers, Bryan & Windsor, Tim D., 2009. "Financial hardship, socio-economic position and depression: Results from the PATH Through Life Survey," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 229-237, July.
    9. Quesnel-Vallée, Amélie & Taylor, Miles, 2012. "Socioeconomic pathways to depressive symptoms in adulthood: Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(5), pages 734-743.
    10. Strand, B.H. & Kunst, Anton, 2006. "Childhood socioeconomic status and suicide mortality in early adulthood among Norwegian men and women. A prospective study of Norwegians born between 1955 and 1965 followed for suicide from 1990 to 20," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(11), pages 2825-2834, December.
    11. Myer, Landon & Stein, Dan J. & Grimsrud, Anna & Seedat, Soraya & Williams, David R., 2008. "Social determinants of psychological distress in a nationally-representative sample of South African adults," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(8), pages 1828-1840, April.
    12. Sanna Tiikkaja & Sven Sandin & Christina M Hultman & Bitte Modin & Ninoa Malki & Pär Sparén, 2016. "Psychiatric disorder and work life: A longitudinal study of intra-generational social mobility," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 62(2), pages 156-166, March.
    13. Stefanie Sperlich & Sonja Arnhold-Kerri & Siegfried Geyer, 2011. "What accounts for depressive symptoms among mothers? The impact of socioeconomic status, family structure and psychosocial stress," International Journal of Public Health, Springer;Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), vol. 56(4), pages 385-396, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:55:y:2002:i:11:p:1989-2004. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.