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

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.

1998 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johan Dambruyne

This article investigates the relationship between social mobility and status in guilds and the political situation in sixteenth-century Ghent. First, it argues that Ghent guilds showed neither a static picture of upward mobility nor a rectilinear and one-way evolution. It demonstrates that the opportunities for social promotion within the guild system were, to a great extent, determined by the successive political regimes of the city. Second, the article proves that the guild boards in the sixteenth century had neither a typically oligarchic nor a typically democratic character. Third, the investigation of the houses in which master craftsmen lived shows that guild masters should not be depicted as a monolithic social bloc, but that significant differences in status and wealth existed. The article concludes that there was no linear positive connection between the duration of a master craftsman's career and his wealth and social position.


2021 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 571-586
Author(s):  
Ehsan Latif

PurposeThis study used data from the General Social Survey (2011) to examine the trends in intergenerational educational mobility in Canada for the 1940–1989 birth cohorts. To this end, the purpose of this study is to focus on the relationship between mothers' education and children's education.Design/methodology/approachThe study estimated intergenerational regression and correlation coefficients and several mobility indices, namely, the Prais–Shorrocks index, immobility index, upward mobility index and downward mobility index.FindingsThe study found considerable gender differences with respect to the trends in these coefficients and indices. The study found that, over the period of study, the correlation coefficient slightly increased for sons while it decreased for daughters. The Prais–Shorrocks index, immobility index, upward mobility index and downward mobility index show that educational mobility has increased for daughters while that of sons has decreased over time. Finally, the relative educational opportunities indicators also suggest a similar result that educational mobility has increased for the daughters while it fell for the sons.Originality/valueA number of studies used Canadian data to examine intergenerational educational mobility. However, no study particularly focused on the relationship between mothers' education and children's education. In recent years, women's labor force participation rate and employment rate increased significantly. Thus, it will be interesting to see how mothers' education is related to children's education in Canada.


2017 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Pulford ◽  
Ruth Gordon ◽  
Lesley Graham ◽  
James Lewsey ◽  
Gerry McCartney ◽  
...  

BackgroundHealth selection has been proposed to explain the patterning of alcohol-related mortality by area deprivation. This study investigated whether persons who die from alcohol-related conditions are more likely to experience social drift than those who die from other causes.MethodsDeaths recorded in Scotland (2013, >21 years) were coded as ‘alcohol-related’ or ‘other’ and by deprivation decile of residence at death. Acute hospital admissions data from 1996 to 2012 were used to provide premortality deprivation data. χ² tests estimated the difference between observed and expected alcohol-related deaths by first Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) decile and type of death. Logistic regression models were fitted using type of death as the outcome of interest and change in SIMD decile as the exposure of interest.ResultsOf 47 012 deaths, 1458 were alcohol-related. Upward and downward mobility was observed for both types of death. An estimated 31 more deaths than expected were classified ‘alcohol-related’ among cases whose deprivation score decreased, while 204 more deaths than expected were classified ‘alcohol-related’ among cases whose initial deprivation ranking was in the four most deprived deciles. Becoming more deprived and first deprivation category were both associated with increased odds of type of death being alcohol-related after adjusting for confounders.ConclusionThis study suggests that health selection appears to contribute less to the deprivation gradient in alcohol-related mortality in Scotland than an individual’s initial area deprivation category.


2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (12) ◽  
pp. 2188-2195
Author(s):  
Xiaozhao Yousef Yang

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.


2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 445-466 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Breen

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.


2011 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 28-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yaojun Li ◽  
Fiona Devine

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.


Author(s):  
Sandra Fachelli ◽  
Ildefonso Marqués-Perales ◽  
Marcelo Boado ◽  
Patricio Solís

AbstractThis chapter presents a review of the analysis of social mobility in the international sphere (Europe and Latin America), with a particular focus on the partner countries of the INCASI network. To date, few studies have linked nations whose economic and social aspects are so dissimilar.As is usual in the specialized literature, the relationship between social origin and class destination is addressed. This is done by noting the comparisons made across the geographical areas. We review the analyses that have been made of the evolution of social fluidity as well as the distance between social classes within each country and the comparisons made between them.We compare the main theories that have inspired the study of social mobility to date: modernization theory, which predicts an increase in relative mobility rates, and invariance theory, which postulates the constancy of social fluidity. Special attention is devoted to the role played by the family, the state and the market in late industrialized countries.We study the difficulties for social change, i.e. upward mobility from one class to another, as well as the likelihood of reproduction in comparative terms. To do so, we link these mechanisms with the AMOSIT model. The advances in methodology, techniques, theory and data processing are highlighted.


2017 ◽  
Vol 240 ◽  
pp. R58-R72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Friedman ◽  
Lindsey Macmillan

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.


2019 ◽  
Vol 118 (807) ◽  
pp. 123-129
Author(s):  
Anirudh Krishna

“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.


PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (8) ◽  
pp. e0254414
Author(s):  
Alexi Gugushvili ◽  
Grzegorz Bulczak ◽  
Olga Zelinska ◽  
Jonathan Koltai

The contemporaneous association between higher socioeconomic position and better health is well established. Life course research has also demonstrated a lasting effect of childhood socioeconomic conditions on adult health and well-being. Yet, little is known about the separate health effects of intergenerational mobility—moving into a different socioeconomic position than one’s parents—among early adults in the United States. Most studies on the health implications of mobility rely on cross-sectional datasets, which makes it impossible to differentiate between health selection and social causation effects. In addition, understanding the effects of social mobility on health at a relatively young age has been hampered by the paucity of health measures that reliably predict disease onset. Analysing 4,713 respondents aged 25 to 32 from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health’s Waves I and IV, we use diagonal reference models to separately identify the effects of socioeconomic origin and destination, as well as social mobility on allostatic load among individuals in the United States. Using a combined measure of educational and occupational attainment, and accounting for individuals’ initial health, we demonstrate that in addition to health gradient among the socially immobile, individuals’ socioeconomic origin and destination are equally important for multi-system physiological dysregulation. Short-range upward mobility also has a positive and significant association with health. After mitigating health selection concerns in our observational data, this effect is observed only among those reporting poor health before experiencing social mobility. Our findings move towards the reconciliation of two theoretical perspectives, confirming the positive effect of upward mobility as predicted by the “rags to riches” perspective, while not contradicting potential costs associated with more extensive upward mobility experiences as predicted by the dissociative thesis.


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