Childhood Conditions, Social Mobility, and Cognitive Function in Late Midlife

• In Event: 499 - Section on Aging and the Life Course Roundtable Session.
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 03. Lifetime Socioeconomic Influences on Health

Abstract

In this study, we draw on the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study to examine the association between childhood conditions and different dimensions of cognitive function (i.e., letter fluency, immediate word recall, delayed word recall, vocabulary similarities, and digit ordering) in late midlife. We find that childhood socioeconomic status has a moderate effect on cognitive function in later life for both men and women, and much of the effect is mediated by education attainment and occupation standing. However, childhood stressors (i.e., living in a broken family and physical abuse) have more damaging effects for women in later life than for men. Some of the negative effects of childhood stressors on cognitive function persist among women after we control for adulthood conditions. In terms of social mobility and cognition, we find that upwardly mobile men and women perform better in all five cognitive tests, which is partly due to their higher adolescent IQ, their relatively good childhood health, less exposure to maltreatment, good adulthood health and health behavior, and strong social support system.

Author

• Zhenmei Zhang, Michigan State University