14 DAY TRIAL // In a paper appearing in the latest online issue of the esteemed scientific journal Social Science & Medicine, researchers show that adults who were depressed as children and teens tend to earn less on average than their healthy counterparts. The correlation was also found to hold true for people who suffered from other psychological disorders as well. It was additionally discovered that adults who had this sort of problems as children have more difficulties in marrying, and end up single more often than the average, LiveScience reports.
“This study shows childhood psychological disorders can cause significant long-lasting harm and can have far-reaching impact on individuals over their lifetimes. Our findings illustrate what the enormous potential might be of identifying and treating these problems early in life,” explains James P. Smith, a researcher on the new study, and also the corporate chair of economics at the nonprofit research organization RAND. The life-long economic loss for all of the 0.5 percent of the general American population that suffers from mental disorders has been calculated to be around $2.1 trillion.
“Not all of the people who have psychological problems during childhood will carry these problems into adulthood. But they are 10 to 20 times more likely than others to have these shortfalls during adulthood,” Smith adds. The expert says that the new investigation was conducted on pairs of siblings, of which one reported suffering from symptoms associated with depression or related conditions, and the other did not. This was done in order to control for the influence of external factors in promoting the financial success of individuals alter on in life.
The investigators behind the new research say that some of the primary causes they identified for nation-wide economic shortfalls are mental disorders. The influence that they exert on children is apparently capable of stretching well into adulthood. This was made obvious in the study, which showed that people who suffered from conditions such as depression tend to experience a 20 percent reduction in their income throughout their lives, when compared to healthy control groups. Additionally, people who had such symptoms as children and teens are 11 percent less likely to ever get married.