Despite these interruptions to her schooling, she won a place studying mathematics at St Anne's College, Oxford in 1958,[2] from where she was awarded an honours BA, and subsequently MA.

During the 1980s she was responsible for assisting in designing and augmenting a major perinatal survey in Jamaica 1985-6,[4] and developed, and was the initial Director of the European Longitudinal Study of Pregnancy and Childhood (ELSPAC).

Golding's decision on what data was useful to collect has led to it being used for genetic and Epigenetics research worldwide,[7] and, by 2019, around 2000 peer-reviewed papers based on this resource have been published.

[8] Golding has continued to carry out research on the ALSPAC resource long into retirement, and has concentrated since 2016 on the following: i) Ways in which the aspect of personality known as Locus of Control of the parents and children influences behaviours, and long term outcomes (with Stephen Nowicki, at Emory University), ii) Ways in which environmental exposures to grandparents and great-grandparents are associated with outcomes in grandchildren and great-grandchildren, including of autism, and obesity (with Marcus Pembrey and Matthew Suderman).

iii) Long-term outcomes of offspring relating to various exposures of the mother including medications (such as paracetamol/acetaminophen), heavy metals (especially mercury) and aspects of the diet (especially the benefits of fish consumption) iv) The question as to whether religious and/or spiritual beliefs affect behaviours and how that might impact health and development.

[10] In 2016, the University of Bristol created the Jean Golding Institute, a multidisciplinary data science and data-intensive research hub, in honour of her work as a mathematician, epidemiologist and founder of the Children of the 90s cohort study.