The adult consequences on wellbeing of abuse and neglect in childhood

Abstract

Using four cross-sectional data files for the United States and Europe we show that adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) have a substantial and significant apparent impact on subjective wellbeing in adulthood. These ACEs – which include death of a parent, parental separation or divorce, household financial difficulties, the prolonged absence of a parent, quarreling between parents, parental unemployment, sexual assault, experiencing long-term health problems, being bullied at school, and being beaten or punched as a child – are associated with significantly lower subjective wellbeing in adulthood. This association is apparent across fifty different subjective wellbeing measures. These include sixteen positive affect measures such as happiness, life satisfaction and domain-specific life satisfaction, and twenty-three negative affect measures such as the GHQ6, loneliness, and feeling down, depressed and tired. In addition, we find ACEs affect perceptions of the area one lives in as an adult including perceptions of drugs, violence and vandalism.