IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/29278.html

The Consequences of Chronic Pain in Mid-Life: Evidence from the National Child Development Survey

Author

Listed:
  • David G. Blanchflower
  • Alex Bryson

Abstract

Using data from all those born in a single week in 1958 in Britain we track the consequences of short pain and chronic pain in mid-life (age 44) on health, wellbeing and labor market outcomes in later life. We examine data taken at age 50 in 2008, when the Great Recession hit and then five years later at age 55 in 2013. We find those suffering both short-term and chronic pain at age 44 continue to report pain and poor general health in their 50s. However, the associations are much stronger for those with chronic pain. Furthermore, chronic pain at age 44 is associated with a range of poor mental health outcomes, pessimism about the future and joblessness at age 55 whereas short-duration pain at age 44 is not. Uniquely, we also show that pain experienced in childhood, at ages 11 and 16, reported by a parent and a teacher respectively, collected decades earlier, predicts pain in mid-life, indicating just how persistent pain can be over the life-course.

Suggested Citation

  • David G. Blanchflower & Alex Bryson, 2021. "The Consequences of Chronic Pain in Mid-Life: Evidence from the National Child Development Survey," NBER Working Papers 29278, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29278
    Note: CH EH LS
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w29278.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Amo-Agyei, Silas & Maurer, Jürgen, 2024. "Pain and subjective well-being among older adults in the developing world : A comprehensive assessment based on the WHO Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    2. Topping, Michael & Fletcher, Jason, 2024. "Educational attainment, family background and the emergence of pain gradients in adulthood," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 346(C).
    3. David G. Blanchflower & Donn. L. Feir, 2023. "Native Americans’ experience of chronic distress in the USA," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 36(2), pages 885-909, April.
    4. Blanchflower, David G. & Bryson, Alex, 2022. "Taking the pulse of nations: A biometric measure of well-being," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 46(C).
    5. Courtney E. Boen & Rebecca Anna Schut & Nick Graetz, 2024. "The Painful and Chilling Effects of Legal Violence: Immigration Enforcement and Racialized Legal Status Inequities in Worker Well-Being," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 43(2), pages 1-29, April.
    6. Alan Piper & David G. Blanchflower & Alex Bryson, 2023. "Is pain associated with subsequent job loss? A panel study for Germany," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 76(1), pages 141-158, February.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29278. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.