Concerningly, child mental health deteriorated between 2011-2019, with further declines seen in 2020-2021. This can be seen in the rising grey line in Figure 1. Unexpectedly, the greatest declines during the pandemic were often seen in typically advantaged groups, including children in higher income households, with degree-educated parents, with nigeria rcs data employed parents and who were not in single-parent households. This pattern meant that inequalities narrowed, but around a worse average level of mental health.
Figure 1: Changes in the average Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) score of UK 5-year-olds between 2011 and 2021. Higher scores represent more severe mental health symptoms. Vertical bars indicate 95% confidence intervals.
The greatest change was seen in relation to parent employment, as shown in Graph E of Figure 1. Children with unemployed parents were 2.18 times more likely to experience borderline or abnormal mental health scores before the pandemic compared to those with employed parents, but during the pandemic this reduced to 1.38 times as likely. In other words, the size of the inequality reduced.