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

Marta Barazzetta, Andrew E. Clark and Conchita D'Ambrosio


We here consider the cognitive and noncognitive consequences on young adults of growing up with a mother who reported experiencing major financial problems. We use UK data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children to show that early childhood financial problems are associated with worse adolescent cognitive and noncognitive outcomes, controlling for both income and a set of standard variables, and in value-added models controlling for children's earlier age-5 outcomes. The estimated effect of financial problems is almost always larger in size than that of income. Around one-quarter to one-half of the effect of financial problems on the noncognitive outcomes seems to transit through mother's mental health. ? 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.


1 February 2021


Health Economics (United Kingdom) 30(2) , pp.342-357, 2021


DOI: 10.1002/hec.4194

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/hec.4194

This Journal article is published under the centre's Community Wellbeing programme.