Increasing inequalities in socioeconomic status (SES) have been identified as a fundamental cause of health disparities. Different socioeconomic groups experience different types of stressors and have different health behavioral patterns. For example, people with lower SES can experience not only the chronic stress of poor working conditions and extensive financial strain but also the magnified stress of life events (e.g., sudden illness, job loss) that overwhelm their limited economic and social resources. As a result of these factors, people with lower SES tend to have worse emotional health outcomes in late adulthood. Lower SES has been associated with higher levels of loneliness, anxiety, and depressive symptoms in later adulthood. SES is not constant over the lifecourse, however, and the lifecourse timing of economic advantage or disadvantage likely plays a vital role in the relationship between SES and emotional health.
In a recent study, we sought to investigate the associations between SES across the lifecourse and trajectories of change in late-life emotional health by applying latent growth curve models to longitudinal measures of loneliness, anxiety, and depressive symptoms over 25 years of follow-up. Data were from 1596 adults from the Swedish Twin Registry, aged 45 to 98 at intake (mean = 72.6). SES was measured via perceived financial strain because evidence suggests that subjective views of positions and resources can have more impact. Additionally, objective measures of SES are subject to gender bias in access to education and occupation, particularly in the cohorts participating in the current analyses, while financial strain has been shown to demonstrate less gender bias than objective SES measures. Measures of financial strain included questions about how well finances met family needs.
Lower financial strain in childhood results in better emotional health in older age
Results found the highest levels of depression and anxiety in the group with high levels of financial strain in both childhood and adulthood, and the lowest levels in the group with low levels of financial strain in both childhood and adulthood. Regardless of extent of financial strain in adulthood, lower financial strain in childhood resulted in better emotional health. Similarly, independent of the extent of financial strain in childhood, lower financial strain in adulthood resulted in better emotional health.
Low childhood financial strain protects against anxiety in older age
Moreover, childhood financial strain contributed significantly to rates of change with age. Groups reporting high childhood financial strain demonstrated linear increases in anxiety from age 50 (the youngest age in the sample). In contrast, groups reporting low childhood financial strain showed no increases in anxiety prior to age 70. Thus, the modeling results suggest that low financial strain in childhood may serve as a buffer that delays longitudinal increases in anxiety in late adulthood found in the current sample. Conversely, exposure to high financial strain in childhood may predispose individuals to experience higher anxiety in late adulthood.
High financial strain across the lifespan leads to increased loneliness in old age
Finally, trajectories revealed that loneliness was stable up to age 70 for all groups except individuals exposed to high financial strain in both childhood and adulthood. Low financial strain in adulthood reduced the impact of high financial strain in childhood on loneliness in late. Similarly, low financial strain in childhood reduced the impact of high financial strain in adulthood on loneliness in late adulthood.
Implications for policy: early social disadvantage has life-long effects on physical and emotional health
In summary, trajectories of change with age in all three variables were impacted by both childhood and adult financial strain. These analyses found striking consistency across emotional health outcomes in the long-term impact of childhood financial strain on emotional health in late adulthood in the context of concurrent adult financial strain.Evidence suggests that the number of years lost to economic adversity is equal to or greater than number of years lost due to major risk factors for chronic disease. The social environment is modifiable by local and national policies, and policymakers need to recognize that early social disadvantage can have long-lasting effects on physical and emotional health.
Study Information
Lead author Deborah Finkel is a research scientist at USC Dornsife’s Center for Economic and Social Research (CESR) and professor of psychology at Jönköping University. Other authors are Martin Hyde (University of Leicester), Caroline Hasselgren (University of Gothenburg), Lawrence Sacco (Stockholm University), Shireen Sindi (Karolinska Institutet and Imperial College London) and Charlotta Nilsen (Karolinska Institutet and Stockholm University). The project is part of the Interplay of Genes and Environment across Multiple Studies (IGEMS) consortium based at CESR.
Finkel, D., Hyde, M., Hasselgren, C., Sacco, L., Sindi, S., & Nilsen, C. (2025). Both childhood and adult financial strain impact rates of change with aging in measures of mental health in late adulthood. Aging and Mental Health. Epub doi: 10.1080/13607863.2025.2464710