The Effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences on Adults' Subjective Wellbeing

Blanchflower, David G. and Bryson, Alex, The Effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences on Adults' Subjective Wellbeing. IZA Discussion Paper No. 16479, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4587415 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4587415

Abstract: Using four cross-sectional data files for the United States and Europe we show that Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) have a significant impact on subjective wellbeing (SWB) in adulthood. Death of a parent, parental separation or divorce, financial difficulties, the prolonged absence of a parent, quarreling between parents, parental unemployment, sexual assault, experiencing long-term health problems, being bullied at school and being beaten or punched as a child all have long-term impacts on wellbeing. These experiences impact a wide range of wellbeing measures in adulthood including satisfaction with many aspects of everyday life, happiness and life satisfaction, self-assessed health, and are positively linked to measures of negative affect including the GHQ6. The evidence linking ACEs to lower SWB in adulthood is consistent across fifty different measures including sixteen positive affect and twenty-six negative affect measures relating to assessments of one's one life, and eight variables capturing how the individual feels about the area she lives in, including unemployment, drugs, violence and vandalism plus democracy in their country. Trauma in childhood is long lasting.

H/t Tyler Cowen

I'm reminded of the literature on childhood attachment,  a subject I studied as an undergraduate at Johns Hopkins where I took an independent study with Mary Ainsworth (and in Wikipedia), one of the founders of attachment theory. That has been central to my thinking every since.