The influence of early health on educational and socioeconomic outcomes

There is a large literature on socioeconomic disparities in health, with a stream focusing on how health influences one’s opportunities to reach a high socioeconomic position. The purpose of this chapter is to pull together and discuss research on the effects of early health on socioeconomic attainment. As socioeconomic outcomes, we consider educational, occupational and income attainment as well as related outcomes, such as cognitive performance, which are sometimes used to explain the effects of health of socioeconomic outcomes. We start by reviewing research on the effects of early health during the prenatal period and infancy as well as later childhood and adolescence and continue to discuss a life course framework of how early health can affect socioeconomic attainment, which builds on the well-known life course models. We conclude by discussing some underrepresented and emerging questions in the literature.