Does childhood trauma cause early retirement ?

I know this ones a bit different ….

But I like being different , on my journey as a trauma survivor searching for knowledge , I like to lift up the sofa a bit and see what’s underneath , today it’s the return of retirement . My Latte and cake has arrived , so Im set……..

Ive deliberately chosen retirement to press a point , that childhood trauma can, and often is , a life long condition. Surprisingly there not a lot of research to back up a claim that ACEs ( Adverse childhood experiences) can lead to a premature retirement.

In June 2021 , The Centre for Retirement Research at Boston College released a paper ” Early life traumas lead to Early retirement “, that seems to fit what I’m looking for….

Probably not surprising to most of you but disability is the main factor for early retirement amongst Ace survivors . We have seen in previous posts just how devastating to long term outcomes ACEs can be , through , biology , environment, addiction , the list go on….

Interestingly the Boston study found that ” People whose families struggled financially when they were children were more likely to retire prematurely “. If you remember a previous post about the effects of COVID and abuse in New York .It was suggested that it was poverty that contributed to some of the abuse in the city and COVID payments reduced this poverty and recorder abuse fell.

The paper looked at all life adversity , unsurprisingly they found the greater the number of adversities led the higher the chance of early retirement. So just like the ACE study that came up with a score for outcomes , the higher the number of ACEs often led to the worst outcomes. This study also looked at building a model looking at various lifetime adversities , one of the main ones were ACEs . The report found a “strong association between ACEs and adult disability ” . They drew also on a previous report from Sweden , Bjorkenstam et al ( 2017) who reported a ” similar pattern of increasing risk of disability retirement associated with ACEs”. Karoliina harkonmaki et al , in 2007 showed ” Respondents who had experienced multiple childhood adversities had a 3.46 fold increase risk ( 95% , CI 2.09 – 5.71) of disability retirement compared to those who reported no ACEs “.

This is an overlooked outcome

This early retirement is important , not just for the lost potential for the economy , the extra cost to the economy but also to the individual . ( Fisher , Chaffeeand and Sonnega 2015 ) showed that early retirement in cases such as these” often translates to lower retirement wealth and income along with other potentially adverse aftereffects”.

In line with all the posts that I have published , looking into the effects of childhood trauma , we can yet again see that the more childhood adversities a child suffers, the higher the risk across all outcomes.

A study from Finland in 2019 looked at data from 5992 employees of the city of Helsinki , using data up to the end of 2016.The conclusion in their own words” The associations between childhood adversities and disability retirement remained after the adjustment for own education .” Parental education and childhood adversities contributed to disability retirement even in midlife”.

When you take a step back , this is a really important and badly researched area , not only does childhood trauma inflict lifelong problems , but it seems that it may lead to early disability retirement for some of those affected as well . I haven’t seen the cost of this calculated , I cannot remember any costings for ACEs that have included this possible outcome , this could be costing millions to an economy .

For my book that Im in the middle of writing I have asked the UK Government to calculate the total cost of ACEs to the United Kingdom .They have agreed two do this , it will take them about another three weeks , I have asked for all costs to be included . It will be interesting to see if the cost of early retirement is included in their calculation.

Here in the UK the University of Brighton published a paper looked at adversity , labour force participation and early exit in later adulthood. ” Children who were abused or neglected were more likely to be permanently sick at age 55″. ” Severe childhood adversities may represent important distal predictors of labour force exit at 55 “. Using data from The National Child Development Study ( includes 98% of births across one week in the UK in March 1955) , 9137 individuals. They as with all studies of this type are limited by the self reporting process used as a means of data collection . Some , for example in the case of sexual abuse may not feel up to reporting the abuse , mental illness was also self reported as clinical diagnosis could not be obtained.

The report reminded us that early maltreatment may alter neurobiological development in early life and may have a direct and sustained impact on future illness and other negative outcomes. This it states “May directly influence capacity for labour force participation”. It is also possible that outcomes may be different for different genders. The paper calls for further studies.

Again , we as ACE survivors are left wondering , ……..so many good people out there are researching in this field looking for the answers to our questions . It would seem that the possible answer is that yes , ACEs do indeed lead to early work force exit due to some form of disability , we do however desperately need more research .

Thank you for spending time on this post , I know there is a lot of content out there and Im really grateful you spent some time here . Im not a medical expert , just an ACE survivor looking for answers and passing on what I have found. I hope you are well , see you soon ……..

Citations:

The Relationship Between Adverse Experiences Over the Life Course and Early Retirement Due to Disability

Amanda Sonnega and Brooke Helppie-McFall

Childhood adversities as a predictor of disability retirement
Karoliina Harkonmäki, Katariina Korkeila, Jussi Vahtera, Mika Kivimäki, Sakari Suominen, Lauri Sillanmäki and Markku Koskenvuo
J. Epidemiol. Community Health 2007;61;479-484 doi:10.1136/jech.2006.052670

Soc Sci Med

. 2017 Jun;183:80-87.

 doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.04.023. Epub 2017 Apr 14.

Longitudinal associations of experiences of adversity and socioeconomic disadvantage during childhood with labour force participation and exit in later adulthood

A E Fahy ¹, S A Stansfeld ², M Smuk ², D Lain ³, M van der Horst ⁴, S Vickerstaff ⁴, C Clark ²

Affiliations expand

• PMID: 28475902
• DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.04.023