Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T00:34:04.888Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Social Mobility and the Interpretation of Social Class Mortality Differentials*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2009

Jon Stern
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The discussion of health inequalities in Britain (e.g. in the Black Report) has been conducted largely on the basis of social class mortality differentials measured by achieved social class and not by social class of origin. It is shown in this paper that social class mortality differentials by achieved social class are not invariant to the rate of social mobility and that the use of them is likely to result in a biased measure of trends in health inequalities when the absolute rate of social mobility varies over time. It is further shown that if, as is likely, health status is a factor systematically affecting the probability for an individual of upward or downward social mobility, then an increase in the rate of social mobility may well result in constant or widening social class mortality differentials by achieved social class even if the differentials are narrowing when measured by social class of origin. It is claimed that this process may well explain why the observed social class mortality differentials, which are measured by achieved social class, have not fallen in Britain during the post-1945 period.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , January 1983 , pp. 27 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Auster, R. I., Leveson, I. and Sarachek, D. (1969), ‘The Production of Health: An exploratory study’, Journal of Human Resources, 4:4, 412–86.Google Scholar
Blaug, M. (1976), ‘The Empirical Status of Human Capital Theory: A Slightly Jaundiced Survey’, Journal of Economic Literature, 14: 3, 827–55.Google Scholar
Blaxter, M. (1981), ‘The Health of the Children: The Place of Health in Cycles of Disadvantage’, Heinemann, London.Google Scholar
Brown, M. and Madge, N. (1982), ‘Despite the Welfare State’, Heinemann, London.Google Scholar
Department of Health and Social Security (1980), Inequalities of Health: Report of a Research Working Group, (The Black Report), HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Fox, J. and Goldblatt, P. (1982), Longitudinal Study: Socio-Economic Mortality Differentials 1971–75, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Goldberg, E. M. and Morrison, S. L. (1963), ‘Schizophrenia and Social Class’, British Journal of Psychiatry, 109; 463, 785–803.Google Scholar
Goldthorpe, J. H. (with Llewellyn, C. and Payne, C.) (1980), Social Mobility and Class Structure in Modern Britain, Clarendon Press (paperback edition), Oxford.Google Scholar
Grossman, M. (1972), The Demand for Health, National Bureau of Economic Research, New York.Google Scholar
Grossman, M. (1972), ‘On the Concept of Health Capital and the Demand for Health’, Journal of Political Economy, 80:2, 223–55.Google Scholar
Grossman, M. (1976), ‘The Correlation between Health and Schooling’, in Terleckyj, N. E. (ed.), Household Production and Consumption, National Bureau of Economic Research, New York.Google Scholar
Illsley, R. (1955), ‘Social Class Selection and Class Differences in Relation to Stillbirths’, British Medical Journal (2), 1,520–4.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Illsley, R., Finlayson, A. and Thompson, B. (1963), ‘The Motivation and Characteristics of Internal Migrants: A Socio-Medical Study of Young Migrants in Scotland’, Millbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, 41:2, 115–44; 41:3, 217–47.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Illsley, R. (1980), Professional or Public Health? Sociology in Health and Medicine, Oxford.Google Scholar
Morris, J. N. and Heady, J. A. (1955), ‘Social and Biological Factors in Infant Mortality in Relation to Father's Occupation’, The Lancet, (1), 499–502.Google Scholar
Mortimore, J. and Blackstone, T. (1982), Disadvantage and Education, Heinemann, London.Google Scholar
H. Phelps-Brown (1977), The Inequality of Pay, Oxford University Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
Routh, G. (1980), Occupation and Pay in Great Britain, Macmillan, London.Google Scholar
Shakotko, R. A., Edwards, L. N. and Grossman, M. (1981), ‘An Exploration of the Dynamic Relationship between Health and Cognitive Development in Adolescence’, in Van der Gaag, J. and Perlman, M. (eds), Health, Economics and Health Economics, North Holland, Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Taubman, J. and Rosen, S. (1980), ‘Healthiness, Education, and Marital Status’, NBER Working Paper No. 611.Google Scholar
Townsend, P. (1979), Poverty in the United Kingdom, Penguin (paperback edition), London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Townsend, P. and Davidson, N. (1982), Inequalities in Health: The Black Report, Pelican, London.Google Scholar
Vroman, W (1977), ‘Working Upgrading and the Business Cycle’, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 1.Google Scholar