We gratefully acknowledge comments from seminar participants at the Academic Medical Center Amsterdam, ESPE, Erasmus University Rotterdam, London School of Economics, the Nordic Summer Institute in Labor Economics, Northwestern University, the Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI), University of Amsterdam, University of Bristol, University of Chicago, University of Mannheim and ‘Effects of Early Life Events Conference' at the University of Michigan. We thank Iftikhar Hussain, Francois Keslair, Richard Murphy, Sandra McNally and Felix Weinhardt for helpful comments and the Center for Economic Performance (CEP) at the London School of Economics for providing research facilities. Part of the research was carried out when Van Ewijk worked on the Netspar theme Health and Income, Work and Care Across the Life Cycle. Almond thanks the NSF CAREER program (award no. SES‐0847329) for financial support. The views expressed here do not reflect the views of the Federal Reserve system.