A streak of success boosts millennial mental health

SALT LAKE CITY — Millennials can add mental health to the list of reasons they should hit certain life milestones in a certain order, according to new research from the Center for Family Studies.

The “achievement sequence” — three steps that include finishing high school, getting a job, getting married before having children, in that order — provides “significant improvements in mental health,” according to Wendy Wang, the institute’s director of research, and Samuel T. Wilkinson, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Yale University.

While consistency has been cited in many studies as the key to avoiding poverty and reducing the risk of divorce, the study may be the first to look at the impact on mental health, Wilkinson said. as executive director of the Yale Depression Research Program. , said the Deseret News.

Looking at young people born between 1980 and 1984, who were interviewed in their 30s, Wang said they studied three groups of millennials: those who married before having children, those who when they had children before getting married or single and those who never married or single. I have no children. The analysis showed:

• The vast majority (97%) of millennials who followed the success rankings were not in poverty as adults, and 9 out of 10 were at least middle class.
• Stress decreases as each step in the sequence is completed. While 30 percent of young people who miss the full sequence are worried, so are only 9 percent of those who have completed three steps.

The report, “The Success Sequence and Millennial Mental Health,” finds that young adults who get married with children enjoy better mental health than those who have a baby out of wedlock or before. to marriage. They are also happier and healthier than those who are never married and have no children. It says those who have been married before having children are less likely to experience “high levels of stress” at age 30 (12%), compared to those who have had a baby before (19%) . And more followers of the sequence report being healthy (65% vs. 52%) and feeling happy at least most of the time (82% vs. 74%).

“So it seems that people who have had children before or outside of marriage, their mental health and physical health are similar to those who have never been married and without children. The dominant group is those who have not married before having children,” said Wang.

Mental health problems

The report comes amid concerns about mental health and loneliness in the US Per the report, “Suicide, anxiety, depression and drug overdose deaths have risen in rates. Younger generations have been hit hard during this crisis. Millennial men and women experience more anxiety and stress than previous generations.”

While Wang and Wilkinson acknowledge the impact of financial health on mental health, they said it’s not the whole story. They pointed out that even when they controlled for money, the findings about the sequence of successes that boosted mental health held up. “Sequence remains an important factor in predicting adult mental health,” they wrote.

“The odds of developing major depression in their 30s were reduced by almost 50% for young people who completed the three steps of the success sequence, after controlling for their money and scores. many that include gender, race and background,” they added.

Wilkinson said he hopes young people will take notice. In the midst of a mental health crisis, people are trying to figure out what can make a difference. “It’s a very difficult question, and it doesn’t have only one answer, but I hope that young people will see the pursuit of success as a way to make goals and life plans for the kind of life they want and that it will help them achieve better financial and mental health outcomes.”

The nuts and bolts of education

The two used the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, examining the 1997 cohort to see how they were doing in their 30s. Young people were born between 1980 and 1984 and are considered the oldest millennials. This group was first surveyed in 1997, when they were between the ages of 12 and 17, then annually from 1997 to 2011 and every two years since then.

Part 18 of the survey – 6,734 respondents are still in the survey – is the focus of the agency’s analysis. Surveys were weighted to be nationally representative.

To look at mental health, they used a short five-item version of the Mental Health Inventory found in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. It measures “the risks of suffering from anxiety and depression, loss of control over behavior or emotions and general mental well-being. Respondents were asked how they felt in the past month with a set of questions five, which include fear, feeling calm and peaceful. cheerleaders.”

Those asked answered how often they felt that way, on a four-point scale.

They found that “the incidence of high blood pressure in 32- to 38-year-olds drops significantly with each step completed in the sequence. Millennials who complete all three steps are less likely to have severe depression in their mid-30s, compared to those who completed all three measures failed these measures (9% vs. 30%).

Read the whole story at Deseret.com.