This article was originally published in November 2017.
Life Course Centre researcher Dr Francisco (Paco) Perales, and colleagues Dr Rasheda Khanam and Dr Son Nghiem, have together published a new Working Paper entitled ‘Sources of Variation in the Income Gradient in Child Mental Health: Evidence from Australia’.
Their paper adds to our understanding of how family income affects children’s health, by examining the interaction between income gradient and children’s mental health. To achieve this they analysed data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC).
Their study found that who is assessing a child’s mental health plays a role in the measures, with, for example, children providing the most negative assessment of their own mental health. Their parents are less harsh in their assessments, and teachers are the most positive. Additionally, the authors found that assessment inaccuracies were dependent on parental income, with less discrepancies found in high-income households, compared to greater discrepancies in low-income households.
Further to this, family income did not have a large effect on children’s mental health, when a complex set of social controls were used. Their research finds that factors such as mothers having good mental health, or the use of positive parenting, are ways that higher income results in better childhood mental health.
When it comes to developing and introducing policies that will help to address the negative impacts disadvantage has upon children’s health, these findings highlight possible areas of focus.
You can read the article, here.