The childhood origins of adult health and well-being: do cohort and gender matter?

John Hobcraft, University of York
Fiona Mensah, University of York

Are the family and childhood antecedents of adult health and well-being the same for individuals born in 1958 and in 1970 in Great Britain? Do these antecedents differ for men and women? Exploiting the overlaps in the content, and similarities in the timing of interviews, we use the National Child Development Study (NCDS), and the British Cohort Study (BCS) to derive a broad ranging set of summary measures of family and childhood antecedents. We examine their effect on adult health and well being using several adult measures of mental and physical health and of life satisfaction, at age 33 for the NCDS and at age 30 for the BCS. Pooling the two cohorts in a common regression model including gender and time interactions, we characterise commonalities and differences between gender, and over time.