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The Intergenerational Transmission of Mental and Physical Health in the United Kingdom

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  • Bencsik, Panka

    (University of Chicago)

  • Halliday, Timothy J.

    (University of Hawaii at Manoa)

  • Mazumder, Bhashkar

    (Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago)

Abstract

We estimate intergenerational health persistence in the United Kingdom using Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALY), a broad measure of health derived from the SF-12 Survey. We estimate that both the rank-rank slope and the intergenerational health association (IHA) are 0.21. We use components of the SF-12 to create mental and physical health indices and find that mental health is at least as persistent across generations as physical health. Importantly, parents' mental health is much more strongly associated with children's health than parents' physical health indicating that mental health might be a more important transmission channel. Finally, we construct an overall measure of welfare that combines income and health, and estimate a rank-rank association of 0.31. This is considerably lower than a comparable estimate of 0.43 for the US, suggesting greater mobility of overall welfare in the UK than the US.

Suggested Citation

  • Bencsik, Panka & Halliday, Timothy J. & Mazumder, Bhashkar, 2021. "The Intergenerational Transmission of Mental and Physical Health in the United Kingdom," IZA Discussion Papers 14126, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14126
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    3. Barschkett, M.; & Bosque-Mercader, L.;, 2024. "Building Health across Generations: Childbirth, Childcare and Maternal Health," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 24/08, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    physical health; mental health; intergenerational health mobility; United Kingdom;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion
    • I14 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Inequality

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