Adverse Childhood Experiences and Risk Behaviours Later in Life: Evidence from SHARE Countries

Abstract

In this paper we investigate whether exposure to adverse experiences during childhood such as physical and emotional abuse affects the likelihood of unhealthy habits and separately the insurgency of chronic diseases and disabilities later in life. The novelty of our approach consists in exploiting the recently published data on adverse childhood experiences for 19 SHARE countries, which enables us to account for country-specific heterogeneity and investigate the long-run effects of exposure to adverse early-life circumstances on risk behaviour such as smoking, drinking, overweight and obesity. Our results highlight a significant positive effect of exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) on the probability of unhealthy lifestyles as well as on the insurgency of chronic diseases and disabilities in the long run.