This project analyzes the relationship between early health conditions, adult socioeconomic attainment, and adult health. The first goal of this study is to document the impact of early health conditions on adult socioeconomic and adult health outcomes. If early health status indeed affects the process of socioeconomic and health accumulation throughout the life course, then early health contributes to explain, albeit partially, the persistence of health disparities among individuals of different socioeconomic and racial backgrounds – a crucial challenge for health policy in the U.S. The second goal is to identify the main pathways through which early health status influences individuals’ adult socioeconomic and health status. We hypothesize that the long-term impact of early health depends in part on the different cognitive and non-cognitive skills that individuals with disparate health conditions acquire throughout their childhood and adolescence.
Because we make inferences that pertain to various stages of the life cycle, we will use multiple prospective longitudinal datasets – five nationally representative of the United States and two nationally representative of the United Kingdom. We will examine the long-term impact of early health across different periods, different cohorts, and two industrialized countries distinguished by their health and education systems. We will use different methods of analysis, including conventional regression and structural equation models, as well as Monte Carlo simulations that allow us to mimic the trajectory of individuals’ lives under different population distributions and under counterfactual scenarios with alternative associations between early health, cognitive and non-cognitive pathways, adult socioeconomic attainment, and adult health.