Class Status and Social Mobility on Tobacco Smoking in Post-Reform China Between 1991 and 2011

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (12) ◽  
pp. 2188-2195
Author(s):  
Xiaozhao Yousef Yang
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Tobacco Smoking ◽  
Upward Mobility ◽  
Social Gradient ◽  
Occupational Prestige ◽  
Downward Mobility ◽  
Heavy Smoking ◽  
Class Weight ◽  
Class Status

Abstract Introduction There is growing attention to social mobility’s impact on tobacco use, but few studies have differentiated the two conceptually distinct mechanisms through which changes in social class can affect tobacco smoking: the class status effect and the mobility effect. Aims and Methods I applied Diagonal Reference Modeling to smoking and heavy smoking among respondents of the 1991 China Health and Nutrition Survey who were revisited two decades later in 2011 (n = 3841, 49% male, baseline mean age was 38 years). I divided the sample into six social classes (non-employment, self-employed, owners, workers, farmers, and retirees) and measured social mobility by changes in income and occupational prestige. Results About 61.7% of men were smokers and those from the classes of workers, owners, and self-employees consumed more cigarettes compared to the unemployed, but women smokers (3.7%) tend to be from the lower classes (unemployed and farmers). Controlling for social class, each 1000 Yuan increase in annual income led to smoking 0.03 more cigarettes (p < .05) and 1% increase (p < .05) in the likelihood of heavy smoking among men, but the income effect is null for women. Upwardly mobile men (a 10-points surge in occupational prestige) smoked like their destination class (weight = 78%), whereas men with downward mobility were more similar to peers in the original class (weight = 60%). Conclusions Contrary to the social gradient in smoking in other industrial countries, higher class status and upward mobility are each associated with more smoking among Chinese men, but not among women. Implications Tobacco control policies should prioritize male smoking at workplaces and the instrumental purposes of using tobacco as gifts and social lubricant. Taxation may counter the surge in smoking brought by individuals’ income increase after upward mobility. Caution should be paid to women joining the similar social gradient in smoking as they gain foothold in the labor market.

scholarly journals Sick leave absence and the relationship between intra-generational social mobility and mortality: health selection in Sweden

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sunnee Billingsley
Keyword(s):  
Sickness Absence ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Event History Analysis ◽  
Upward Mobility ◽  
Poor Health ◽  
Downward Mobility ◽  
Health Selection ◽  
Average Marginal Effects ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Related Mortality

Abstract Background Poor health could influence how individuals are sorted into occupational classes. Health selection has therefore been considered a potential modifier to the mortality class gradient through differences in social mobility. Direct health selection in particular may operate in the short-term as poor health may lead to reduced work hours or achievement, downward social mobility, unemployment or restricted upward mobility, and death. In this study, the relationship between social mobility and mortality (all-cause, cancer-related, cardiovascular disease-related (CVD), and suicide) is explored when the relationship is adjusted for poor health. Methods Using Swedish register data (1996–2012) and discrete time event-history analysis, odds ratios and average marginal effects (AME) of social mobility and unemployment on mortality are observed before and after accounting for sickness absence in the previous year. Results After adjusting for sickness absence, all-cause mortality remained lower for men after upward mobility in comparison to not being mobile (OR 0.82, AME -0.0003, CI − 0.0003 to − 0.0002). Similarly, upward mobility continued to be associated with lower cancer-related mortality for men (OR 0.85, AME -0.00008, CI − 0.00002 to − 0.0002), CVD-related mortality for men (OR 0.76, AME -0.0001, CI − 0.00006 to − 0.0002) and suicide for women (OR 0.67, AME -0.00002, CI − 0.000002 to − 0.00003). The relationship between unemployment and mortality also persisted across most causes of death for both men and women after controlling for previous sickness absence. In contrast, adjusting for sickness absence renders the relationship between downward mobility and cancer-related mortality not statistically different from the non-mobile. Conclusions Health selection plays a role in how downward mobility is linked to cancer related deaths. It additionally accounts for a portion of why upward mobility is associated with lower mortality. That health selection plays a role in how social mobility and mortality are related may be unexpected in a context with strong job protection. Job protection does not, however, equalize opportunities for upward mobility, which may be limited for those who have been ill. Because intra-generational upward mobility and mortality remained related after adjusting for sickness absence, other important mechanisms such as indirect selection or social causation should be explored.

scholarly journals Education and intergenerational social mobility in the US and four European countries

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 445-466 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Breen
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Structural Change ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Upward Mobility ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Educational Expansion ◽  
Downward Mobility ◽  
The Us ◽  
Social Fluidity ◽  
Second World

Abstract I draw on the findings of a recently completed comparative research project to address the question: how did intergenerational social mobility change over cohorts of men and women born in the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, and what role, if any, did education play in this? The countries studied are the US, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden. Notwithstanding the differences between them, by and large they present the same picture. Rates of upward mobility increased among cohorts born in the second quarter of the century and then declined among those born later. Among earlier born cohorts, social fluidity increased (that is, the association between the class a person was born into and the class he or she came to occupy as an adult declined) and then remained unchanged for those born after mid-century. The association between class origins and educational attainment followed much the same trend as social fluidity. This suggests that growing equalization in education may have contributed to the increase in social fluidity. In our analyses we find that this is so, but educational expansion also led to greater fluidity in some countries. There is also a strong link between upward mobility and social fluidity. Upward mobility was mostly driven by the expansion of higher-level white-collar jobs, especially in the 30 years after the end of the Second World War. This facilitated social fluidity because people from working class and farming origins could move into the service or salariat classes without reducing the rate at which children born into those classes could remain there. Educational expansion, educational equalization, and rapid structural change in the economies of the US and Europe all contributed to greater social fluidity among people born in the second quarter of the twentieth century. For people born after mid-century, rates of downward mobility have increased: however, despite the lack of further educational equalization and less pronounced structural change, social fluidity has remained unchanged.

scholarly journals Is Social Mobility Really Declining? Intergenerational Class Mobility in Britain in the 1990s and the 2000s

2011 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 28-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yaojun Li ◽  
Fiona Devine
Keyword(s):  
Social Mobility ◽  
Upward Mobility ◽  
Household Survey ◽  
Downward Mobility ◽  
Ongoing Debate ◽  
The Public ◽  
Class Mobility ◽  
Time Period ◽  
General Household Survey

This paper contributes to the ongoing debate on social mobility in contemporary Britain among economists and sociologists. Using the 1991 British Household Panel Survey and the 2005 General Household Survey, we focus on the mobility trajectories of male and female respondents aged 25-59. In terms of absolute mobility, we find somewhat unfavourable trends in upward mobility for men although long-term mobility from the working class into salariat positions is still in evidence. An increase in downward mobility is clearly evident. In relation to women, we find favourable trends in upward mobility and unchanging downward mobility over the fourteen-year time period. With regard to relative mobility, we find signs of greater fluidity in the overall pattern and declining advantages of the higher salariat origin for both men and women. We consider these findings in relation to the public debate on social mobility and the academic response and we note the different preoccupations of participants in the debate. We conclude by suggesting that the interdisciplinary debate between economists and sociologists has been fruitful although a recognition of similarities, and not simply differences in position, pushes knowledge and understanding forward.

scholarly journals Is London Really the Engine-Room? Migration, Opportunity Hoarding and Regional Social Mobility in the UK

2017 ◽  
Vol 240 ◽  
pp. R58-R72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Friedman ◽  
Lindsey Macmillan
Keyword(s):  
Social Mobility ◽  
Regional Differences ◽  
Upward Mobility ◽  
Labour Force ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Downward Mobility ◽  
Engine Room ◽  
The Uk ◽  
First Time ◽  
Domestic Migrants

In this paper we explore for the first time regional differences in the patterning of occupational social mobility in the UK. Drawing on data from Understanding Society (US), supported by the Labour Force Survey (LFS), we examine how rates of absolute and relative intergenerational occupational mobility vary across 19 regions of England, Scotland and Wales. Our findings somewhat problematise the dominant policy narrative on regional social mobility, which presents London as the national ‘engine-room’ of social mobility. In contrast, we find that those currently living in Inner London have experienced the lowest regional rate of absolute upward mobility, the highest regional rate of downward mobility, and a comparatively low rate of relative upward mobility into professional and managerial occupations. This stands in stark contrast to Merseyside and particularly Tyne and Wear where rates of both absolute and relative upward mobility are high, and downward mobility is low. We then examine this Inner London effect further, finding that it is driven in part by two dimensions of migration. First, among international migrants, we find strikingly low rates of upward mobility and high rates of downward mobility. Second, among domestic migrants, we find a striking overrepresentation of those from professional and managerial backgrounds. These privileged domestic migrants, our results indicate, are less likely to experience downward mobility than those from similar backgrounds elsewhere in the country. This may be partly explained by higher educational qualifications, but may also be indicative of a glass floor or opportunity hoarding.

Cutting Through

Uneven Odds ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 171-206
Author(s):  
Divya Vaid
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
National Level ◽  
Relative Importance ◽  
Downward Mobility ◽  
Class Mobility ◽  
Specific Occupation ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Over Time

This chapter brings out the influence of caste on social class mobility and analyses in detail the association between caste and social class in India. While theories of social change posit a decline in the impact of caste on social mobility over time, this chapter questions whether we see evidence of this at the national level. More crucially has the association between caste and class declined? And, has the relative importance of caste on achieveing a specific occupation, and hence social mobility, also declined overtime? In light of debates on affirmative action, this chapter asks whether certain castes find it harder to take advantage of upward class mobility chances, and conversely whether some castes are cushioned from downward mobility chances.

scholarly journals Obstacles to Social Mobility in India—And the Way Forward

2019 ◽  
Vol 118 (807) ◽  
pp. 123-129
Author(s):  
Anirudh Krishna
Keyword(s):  
Social Mobility ◽  
Upward Mobility ◽  
Downward Mobility ◽  
Real Possibility ◽  
The World ◽  
The Way

“For many … significant upward mobility remains a doubtful prospect, while substantial downward mobility is a real possibility.” Eighth in a series on social mobility around the world.

Social Class and Educational Attainment: Do Blacks Benefit Less from Increases in Parents’ Social Class Status?

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-241 ◽  
Author(s):  
John P. Bumpus ◽  
Zimife Umeh ◽  
Angel L. Harris
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Educational Attainment ◽  
Family Structure ◽  
Racial Differences ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
Family Income ◽  
Black Youth ◽  
Occupational Prestige ◽  
Class Status

Classic and contemporary studies show that greater social class status is associated with higher levels of education for youth. However, racialized processes might constrain the benefits blacks receive from increases in parents’ social class. In this study the authors use the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 to estimate whether race moderates the relationship among three common measures of youths’ social class during high school (parents’ occupations, family income, and parents’ level of education) and their college enrollment two years after high school and educational attainment eight years after high school. The results suggest that black youth receive lower benefits from social class than whites for both outcomes, and parents’ gender plays a role in the racial differences in the link between social class and both outcomes. The authors also find a three-way interaction with family structure for mothers (among race, social class, and family structure); among youth not in two-parent households, blacks benefit less than whites from mothers’ occupational prestige on enrollment. This study extends the literature on social class and racial inequality in education by explicitly testing whether black youth receive lower benefits from social class in their attainment. Doing so separately for mothers’ and fathers’ social class characteristics uncovers a nuanced pattern useful for understanding race as a moderator to social class.

scholarly journals Education and Intergenerational Social Mobility in Europe and the United States

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Upward Mobility ◽  
Social Background ◽  
The United States ◽  
Downward Mobility ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Class Mobility ◽  
The Social

This book is about the role of education in shaping rates and patterns of intergenerational social mobility among men and women during the twentieth century. It examines intergenerational class mobility in the United States and seven European countries during this period. Class mobility compares the social class position of men and women with the class of the family they were born into. Mobility trends have been similar in all these countries, with increasing upward mobility among people born up to about 1950 and increasing downward mobility for those born later. The major driver of upward mobility was the massive changes in the occupational structure that took place in the thirty years after the end of World War II. Education was also important in promoting greater openness, not only through the growth of higher education, but also because, in many cases, the relationship between social background and educational attainment weakened.

scholarly journals Does Downward Social Mobility Make People More Hostile Towards Immigrants?

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marii Paskov ◽  
Patrick Präg ◽  
Lindsay Richards
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Upward Mobility ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Economic Decline ◽  
Downward Mobility ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Working Classes ◽  
Class Mobility ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
Parental Class

This study explores the relationships between intergenerational social class mobility and attitudes towards immigration. We interpret a failure to keep up with parental social class (i.e. downward mobility) as an indicator that individual’s status achievements lag behind expectations and contribute to subjective feelings of loss and decline. An innovative feature of this paper is that we investigate both whether individual’s mobility experience -- micro level -- and also whether opportunity structures -- mobility on a macro level -- are linked with attitudes towards immigration. In contexts with high downward-mobility, opportunities for moving up are limited and hence perceived economic decline and loss might lead to more hostility towards immigrants. By contrast, high upward mobility expands opportunities for all and as such might promote positive attitudes towards immigrants. We use the European Social Survey data (2002-10) and conduct analyses on 30 countries using diagonal reference models that allow the effects of individual mobility trajectory to be disentangled from origin status and destination status. Our results show that the working classes hold stronger anti-immigration attitudes and parental class continues to exert an effect on attitudes in adulthood even after accounting for individual’s own social class position. Being downwardly mobile from parental class does not appear to be associated with more hostility towards immigrants, except in a few European countries like Italy, Poland, and Greece. Our random-effects meta-regression models show, however, that people living in contexts of high downward mobility are more hostile towards immigrants compared to people in contexts with high upward mobility.

scholarly journals Intragenerational social mobility and self-rated oral health in the british cohort study

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aina Najwa Mohd Khairuddin ◽  
Eduardo Bernabé ◽  
Elsa Karina Delgado-Angulo
Keyword(s):  
Cohort Study ◽  
Oral Health ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Birth Cohort ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Middle Adulthood ◽  
Downward Mobility ◽  
Reference Models ◽  
Conventional Regression ◽  
Diagonal Reference Models

Abstract Background Most studies on social mobility and oral health have focused on movement between generations (intergenerational mobility) rather than movement within an individual’s own lifetime (intragenerational mobility). The aim of this study was to investigate the association between intragenerational social mobility from early to middle adulthood and self-rated oral health. Methods This study used data from 6524 participants of the 1970 British Birth Cohort Study, an ongoing population-based birth cohort of individuals born in England, Scotland and Wales. Participants’ socioeconomic position was indicated by occupational social class at age 26 and 46 years (the first and latest adult waves, respectively). Self-rated oral health was measured at age 46 years. The association between social mobility and adult oral health was assessed using conventional regression models and diagonal reference models, adjusting for gender, ethnicity, country of residence and residence area. Results Over a fifth of participants (22.2%) reported poor self-rated oral health at age 46 years. In conventional regression analysis, the odds ratios for social mobility varied depending on whether they were adjusted for social class of origin or destination. In addition, all social trajectories had greater odds of reporting poor oral health than non-mobile adults in class I/II. In diagonal reference models, both upward (Odds Ratio 0.79; 95% CI 0.63–0.99) and downward mobility (0.90; 95% CI 0.71–1.13) were inversely associated with poor self-rated oral health. The origin weight was 0.48 (95% CI 0.33–0.63), suggesting that social class of origin was as important as social class of destination. Conclusion This longitudinal analysis showed that intragenerational social mobility from young to middle adulthood was associated with self-rated oral health, independent of previous and current social class.

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