Adulthood trajectories of resilience and vulnerability: exploring gender differences in disadvantage after experience of out-of-home care

ICON members Ylva B Almquist, Lisa Bornscheuer, and Karl Gauffin published a longitudinal cohort study together with Evelina Landstedt. The study examines patterns of resilience and vulnerability in adulthood following childhood adversity, with a particular focus on gender and education.

About the study

Childhood adversity can have long-lasting consequences across several areas of life, including health, employment and socioeconomic circumstances. However, individuals exposed to adversity do not all follow the same trajectories. While some experience disadvantages that persist or accumulate across adulthood, others show resilience and avoid negative outcomes. Less is known about how these patterns differ between men and women and the role that education may play.

The study used linked register data from the Stockholm Birth Cohort Multigenerational Study, comprising individuals born in 1953 and living in the Stockholm metropolitan area in 1963. Out-of-home care due to family circumstances was used as a proxy for childhood adversity. The researchers followed social, economic and health-related disadvantages between ages 48 and 62 and used group-based multi-trajectory modelling to identify different adulthood trajectories among individuals with experience of out-of-home care.

Experience of out-of-home care was associated with higher levels of disadvantage in adulthood. Among individuals without such experience, disadvantage showed clear gender patterns: women were more likely to experience unemployment and poor health, while criminality and substance misuse were more common among men. These gender differences were largely absent among individuals with experience of out-of-home care.

Among those with out-of-home care experience, the largest trajectory group had low probabilities of disadvantage across all studied domains. Women were less likely than men to belong to trajectories characterised by complex or unemployment-related disadvantage. Higher education was also associated with a lower likelihood of trajectories characterised by disabling health problems and complex disadvantage, highlighting the potential role of education in processes of resilience following childhood adversity.

Highlights

“Childhood adversity was associated with greater disadvantage in adulthood, but more than half of those with out-of-home care experience followed a trajectory characterised by low levels of disadvantage across the studied domains.”

Publication details

Bornscheuer, L., Landstedt, E., Gauffin, K., & Almquist, Y. B. (2025). Adulthood trajectories of resilience and vulnerability: Exploring gender differences in disadvantage after experience of out-of-home care. BMC Public Health, 25, 417.

Read more: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-025-21531-y

Featured authors