Heather Brown, Newcastle University - Is it my parents or society?: Exploring the Intergenerational Persistence of Health and Income over time using data from the British Household Panel Survey and Understanding Society Survey (1991-2016)

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  • Melbourne Institute Seminar Series

Title: Is it my parents or society?: Exploring the Intergenerational Persistence of Health and Income over time using data from the British Household Panel Survey and Understanding Society Survey (1991-2016)

Abstract: There is a lack of evidence on the intergenerational persistence of physical and mental health and if and how this relates to the intergenerational correlation in income. In this paper, we utilise data from the British Household Panel Survey (1991-2008) and Understanding Society Survey (2009-2016) to investigate intergenerational inequalities in physical health measured using self-assessed health and mental health measured using the GHQ and income measured using log of hourly wage.  A latent health and income variable is created to generate lifetime health and income variables to reduce biases from comparing outcomes in two generations.  We investigate using different number of data points to create this latent variable and how that impacts on the observed intergenerational correlation in health and income. We explore the intergenerational correlation across different quintiles to determine if the highest and lowest quintiles have fared better or worse over time.  Finally, we conduct a policy case study employing a propensity score matching approach to explore if the introduction of Sure Start centres in 1999 to improve the early life chances of 0-5 year olds has had an impact on the intergenerational correlation in health and income for 16-18 year olds.  Preliminary results show that the intergenerational correlation in health has been decreasing over time but the intergenerational association in income is increasing over time.   Using a larger number of data points to create a latent health and income variable strengthens the observed intergenerational correlation.  This suggests that fewer data points may not be capturing the true lifetime cycle.

Presenter: Heather Brown, Newcastle University

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