Children who are raised in a single-parent family or in an overcrowded family home are more likely to suffer from physical and mental health problems in later life, according to new research by the University of Aberdeen.
The Europe-wide research led by Professor Ioannis Theodossiou, of the Centre for European Labour Market Research at the University of Aberdeen, also recommends that European governments should focus on reducing unemployment, poverty and social exclusion, in the drive to cut the health bills borne by the national health services. The Aberdeen team included Dr David McCausland, David Cooper and Dr Alexandros Zangelidis, of the University’s Business School.
The SOCIOLD Project (Socio-economic and occupational effects on the health inequality of the older workforce), explores the socio-economic status for six countries: Denmark, Finland, Greece, the Netherlands, and the UK, focusing on how our social status affects our physical and mental health in later life.
Professor Theodossiou and his research team designed a questionnaire to gather new information about physical and mental health status of the older workforce – people aged over 50 - examining their past working experience, chronic diseases and the individual’s social status and health background.
The research revealed that a higher socio-economic status, defined by household income, employment status and education, can mean better health because wealthier people are able to be better fed and housed and have better access to health services compared to poorer people. Social status is related to both the control a person has over their life and the level of participation in the society.
Professor Theodossiou said: “Wealthier individuals tend to be better informed about health related behaviours like physical exercise, smoking and diet. However, an individual’s socio-economic status may also be affected by the state of their health as ill health may also affect a person’s earning capacity.
“Individuals at the bottom of the social hierarchy experience higher levels of stress due to their inability to control their lives or to participate fully in all that society has to offer. This suggests that policies that reduce income inequality or policies that contribute to the elimination of ‘social exclusion’ are likely to result in an improvement of the health of the whole population.”
One of the most significant research findings shows that individuals from families that were well-off financially - when at the age of 14 - have better physical and mental health at the later stages of their working lives.
“Since poverty and social inequality adversely affect children’s health and development, and health in early life is the basis of health in adult life, we would expect that childhood deprivation and low education would have also an adverse effect on health later on in life,” continued Professor Theodossiou.
The European Commission Funded research also revealed that unemployed people have significantly shorter spells of good health and that unemployment has a more significant effect on younger individuals than the effect on the older workforce.
“Education increases the length of time individuals enjoy good health, and contrary to some recent research, our results show that employment has a positive effect on health conditions.”
The research also showed that working for more than 30 hours per week is associated a lower demand for health care services across Europe.
”These findings casts doubt to the view that increased employment rates are detrimental to health,” said Professor Theodossiou. “Unemployment appears to have a most severe impact on the mortality of middle-aged groups.”
Overall, the SOCIOLD results point towards the view that population health improvements can follow from policies that aim to reduce unemployment, poverty and social exclusion. High unemployment, extreme income inequality, and high incidence of ‘social exclusion’, do not only harm the current health of the people who suffer these social evils, they also harm their long term health later in life - as well as the health of future generations.
“Lowering the level of unemployment and the degree of income inequality and increasing the level of education emerge as key economic policy targets to improve the population’s health. Targeting youth unemployment and encouraging young people to continue to further and higher education has beneficial effects on their health at later stages in life,” added Professor Theodossiou.
“This has huge repercussions for both the labour force participation of the older generations in an area of ageing populations in the EU and the overall current and future health bill borne by the national health services.”