E-Poster | Mental Health | Psychiatry | Wellness

Poor mental health as child limits capacity to work in later life, study finds

2025-05-19 - 2025-05

Children in Great Britain with serious mental health conditions are two-thirds more likely to have a limited ability to work in adulthood, according to research from a leading thinktank.

The report by researchers at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) looked at data from about 6,000 people who took part in the 1970 British Cohort Study, which is following the lives of individuals born in a single week in 1970 across Great Britain.

The analysis found that people who had severe mental and behavioural issues as a child were 85% more likely to have symptoms of depression at the age of 51, and 68% more likely to have a long-term condition that affects their ability to work.

Children with a physical health problem were 38% more likely to have limited capacity for work in later life, according to the analysis.

The government has pledged to “raise the healthiest generation of children in our history”. Labour has committed to introducing a targeted national dental hygiene programme, cutting paediatric waiting times with 2m more operations, and setting a 9pm watershed for junk food advertising.

The IPPR recommended the government safeguard spending on children and preventive spending in the NHS and other public services, and expand the role of the children’s commissioner.

In January, the Guardian reported that the number of children referred to emergency mental healthcare in England had risen by 10% in a year, with lengthy waiting lists for regular NHS care pushing more to crisis point.

Previous research by the IPPR estimated that the hidden cost of rising workplace sickness in the UK with employees now losing the equivalent of 44 days of productivity because of working through sickness, up from 35 days in 2018.

Amy Gandon, an associate fellow at the thinktank and a former senior government official on children’s health, said: “Successive governments have failed to face up to the long-term consequences of poor child health. If this government is serious about building a preventative state, it must act decisively to improve the prospects of our children and young people.

“What’s more, the dividends from doing so need not be decades away; the right action now – for example, for those joining the workforce within a few years – can deliver better health, opportunity and growth within this parliament.”

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Poor mental health as child limits capacity to work in later life, study finds