A new study shows that children born prematurely are more likely to have a lower-paying job than children born normally. The findings also show a link between prematurity and lower academic ability and lower educational attainment. Dieter Wolke, a psychologist at the University of Warwick, said, “Our findings suggest that for preterm children in childhood, finances are not a constraint on their access to good health care and education, but this changes somewhat when they reach adulthood. In sum, these findings suggest that the effects of prematurity on academic performance and wealth accumulation are long-lasting, and that such effects will also persist into the fifth decade of life.” To reach the conclusions they needed, Professor Wolke and his team analyzed data from two major studies, the British National Development Study and the British Cohort Study – which allowed them to follow babies born in England, Scotland and Wales in just one week, rather than all babies born in ten years. . Professor Wolke and his team focused only on children born between 28 and 42 weeks of gestational age in these studies, and learned about their wealth at age 42. The study by Professor Wolke and his team included 15,000 individuals. To consider the wealth of the sample, the researchers examined their household income and their social class, as well as their housing and employment status, and, in addition to these objective factors, their perceptions of their economic situation. In addition to these objective factors, the researchers also investigated the sample’s perceptions of their economic status. In order to consider their academic ability, the researchers evaluated their math, reading and intelligence scores, as well as their parents’ and teachers’ ratings. The team also took into account a number of variables that may have influenced the sample’s childhood or adulthood, including birth weight, maternal prenatal health care, parental education, and parental social class. Their findings showed that among those born in 1958 and 1970, those born too early tended to have poorer wealth status by age 42. At the same time, the researchers also pointed out that, compared with people born at full term, premature babies also have lower education. Those born too early are more likely to be called manual laborers, and they are more likely to be unemployed and to experience economic hardship. In addition, they are less likely to own their own homes than people born at full term – even after taking into account other factors that may have an impact. And as predicted, preterm children also have relatively low academic skills – especially in math. The researchers said the preterm children’s poorer performance in math could more or less explain their poorer economic status. Psychologist Maartje Basten, one of the study’s co-authors, said, “The preterm children we studied were not too early – on average, about five weeks – but what surprised us most was that just five weeks had such a profound effect.” Although the study was not large, the sample showed significant differences after age 40, the researchers said. The researchers also noted that the rate of premature births has increased somewhat in recent years, and studies of these preterm babies have shown that prematurity causes some decreases in cognitive function and also leaves them with lower academic achievement. Previous research has shown that teachers and educational psychologists are not trained to meet the needs of preterm infants and have little expertise in dealing with the learning and attention problems of preterm infants,” said Professor Wolke. If educators had more expertise in these areas and intervened appropriately with preterm infants, this could have a dramatic impact on preterm infants and would improve their lives.” The results of the study have now been published in Psychological Science.