The impact of childhood socioeconomic status on depression and anxiety in adult life: Testing the accumulation, critical period and social mobility hypotheses

Abstract

This paper examines the association between financial hardship in childhood and adulthood, and depression and anxiety in adulthood with reference to the accumulation, critical period and social mobility hypotheses in lifecourse epidemiology. Using the BBC Stress test, linear regression models were used to investigate the associations for the whole population and stratifying by sex and adjusting for age and highest education attainment. The critical period hypothesis was not confirmed. The accumulation hypothesis was confirmed and stratifying by sex women had a higher estimated mean GAD score if they were poor in both childhood and adulthood compared to men. Our findings do not support the social mobility hypothesis. However, stratifying by sex, a clear difference emerged with upward mobility having a favourable impact (lower) on women's mean GAD scores, while upward social mobility in adulthood did not attenuate the impact of financial hardship in childhood or men. The impact of financial hardship in childhood on later mental health outcomes is particularly concerning for future health outcomes as current levels of child poverty increases in the UK.

Keywords

• Depression and anxiety
• Lifecourse epidemiology
• Childhood
• Financial hardship
• Adult health