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There has been growing interest in social mobility (that is, an individual's movement within a social system) and the problems associated with it. This paper shows that the rates of psychiatric disorder are a function of (a) social mobility, (b) direction of mobility, (c) distance moved, (d) the locus of mobility in the status hierarchy. A central concept in this discussion is the concept of "anomie."
"Data from the OPCS Longitudinal Study is used to examine the social mobility of 'immigrants' in England and Wales between 1971 and 1981. Three issues are raised: (i) in what respects and to what degree do 'immigrants' differ in their social mobility characteristics from the norm set by the population as a whole?; (ii) in what respects and to what degree do 'immigrants' differ amongst themselves in their social mobility characteristics according to their country of origin?; and (iii) how do 'second-generation immigrants' and recently-arrived immigrants differ in their social class locations from those who have been in the British labour market for a considerable length of time?" (SUMMARY IN FRE)
"The effect of social mobility on the socioeconomic differential in mortality is examined with data from the Office for National Statistics Longitudinal Study. The analyses involve 46,980 men aged 45-64 years in 1981. The mortality risk of the socially mobile is compared with the mortality risk of the socially stable after adjustment for their class of origin (their social class in 1971) and class of destination (their social class in 1981) separately. Among those in employment there is some evidence that movement out of their class of origin is in the direction predicted by the idea of health-related social mobility. This evidence, however, seems strongest for causes of death which are least likely to have been preceded by prolonged incapacity. Movement into the class of destination, however, shows the opposite relationship with mortality."
The objective of this prospective cohort study was to determine the contribution of changes in social class within and between generations to mortality risk and to socioeconomic differentials in mortality. In 27 workplaces in the west of Scotland. 5567 men aged 35-64 years when screened, provided information on their father's occupation, their own first occupation and their occupation at screening. Mortality risk, from broad causes of death by intergenerational and intragenerational social mobility groups, was measured after 21 years. For all or some of the 3 routes of mobility (childhood to screening, labour market entry to screening and childhood to labour market entry), increasing values were seen across the 4 groups (stable non manual, upwardly mobile, downwardly mobile and stable manual) for diastolic blood pressure, body mass index, current smoking, early school leaving, angina, bronchitis, severe chest pain, and proportion living in deprived areas. Decreasing values were seen for serum cholesterol, height, FEV1, exercise, never and ex-smokers, wine drinkers and car users. For mobility between childhood and screening and between childhood and labour market entry, mortality risk was highest for the stable manual group and lowest for the stable non manual group for all cause, cardiovascular disease and other causes of death. The upwardly and downwardly mobile groups had intermediate risks. For cancer mortality, the stable manual group had the highest risk with the other groups having lower and similar risks. For mobility between labour market entry and screening, the highest risk was for the downwardly mobile group for all cause and cardiovascular mortality. For cancer mortality, the risk was higher for men in manual social classes at all occasions. Adjustment for risk factors attenuated but could not completely explain the differentials in mortality risk. Overall, major differences in mortality risk were seen between the stable non manual and the stable manual groups, to which social mobility does not contribute. With the exception of the small intragenerationally downwardly mobile group there was little evidence that social mobility itself was associated with mortality outcomes different from those expected on the basis of lifetime socioeconomic experience. This is consistent with the suggestion that the main influence of socioeconomic position on mortality risk is an accumulative one, acting across the lifecourse.
OBJECTIVES: A case-control study within a cohort of the workers employed by Electricité de France and Gaz de France between 1988 and 1992 was carried out to investigate relationships between cancers and socioeconomic status, including the effects of social mobility, by studying three professional career points. METHODS: All the incident cases of breast cancer in women and all the incident cases of upper respiratory and digestive tract cancer (comprising cancers of the larynx, pharynx, buccal cavity and esophagus), lung cancer, hematopoietic system cancers and colon cancer in men were extracted from the Cancer Register of the Social Security Department. The controls were matched for age (men) and for age and length of employment in the company (women). Socioeconomic status was measured at three professional career points (beginning, midpoint (about 35), and time of diagnosis (about 48)) by two types of socio-professional variables: employee category (low, medium, high) and a variable based on the French socioeconomic status classification system. An estimation of social mobility was done between career beginning and midpoint. Cases and controls were compared for socioeconomic status at the three career points. They were also compared for social mobility. RESULTS: The differences between the social categories were larger at the start than later in the career for breast cancer in women. The category of operations staff was used as a reference, and this analysis shows a difference between the risks associated with supervisors (OR = 2.0) and managers and specialist professions (OR = 1.5). There were large differences according to the type of cancer in men. A socioeconomic gradient in the incidence of cancers of the upper respiratory and digestive tract was observed at every career stage. The gradient was largest at the moment of diagnosis. The odds ratio was 3.4 for supervisors, 7.8 for operations staff and 14.8 for production staff. There was a socioeconomic gradient in lung cancer at all points in the career and in the incidence of the hematopoietic system cancers at mid-career and at diagnosis. No association between socioeconomic status and colon cancer was found. Social mobility accentuated all these results. CONCLUSION: Socioeconomic status is involved in the development of cancers. Our study suggests that the transition from social to biological processes could act via specific lifestyle and/or work-related risk factors. When there is a social gradient in the incidence of a cancer, an individual's social change is at least as important as his/her original social status in the relationship between cancer and social class.
The accumulation hypothesis would propose that the longer the duration of exposure to disadvantaged socio-economic position, the greater the risk of myocardial infarction. However there may be a danger of confounding between accumulation and possibly more complex combinations of critical periods of exposure and social mobility. The objective of this paper is to investigate the possibility of distinguishing between these alternatives. We used a population based case-control study (Stockholm Heart Epidemiology Programme) of all incident first events of myocardial infarction among men and women, living in the Stockholm region 1992-94. The analyses were restricted to men 53-70 years, 511 cases and 716 controls. From a full occupational history each subject was categorized as manual worker or non-manual at three stages of the life course, childhood (from parent's occupation), at the ages 25-29 and 51-55, resulting in 8 possible socio-economic trajectories. We found a graded response to the accumulation of disadvantaged socio-economic positions over the life course. However, we also found evidence for effects of critical periods and of social mobility. A conceptual analysis showed that there are, for theoretical reasons, only a limited number of trajectories available, too small to form distinct empirical categories of each hypothesis. The empirical task of disentangling the life course hypotheses of critical period, social mobility and accumulation is therefore comparable to the problem of separating age, period, and cohort effects. Accordingly, the interpretation must depend on prior knowledge of more specific causal mechanisms.
During the past thirty years Catholics in Northern Ireland have experienced unprecedented upward social mobility. Some commentators have suggested that this has led Catholics not merely to adopt the lifestyles of the middle class but also to modify their constitutional preferences, leading to a decline in nationalism. In this paper I examine the relationship between social mobility, on the one hand, and, on the other, both constitutional preferences and political (left or right wing) preferences among Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, using survey data collected in 1996. There is no evidence that Catholics' constitutional preferences are related to their mobility experiences.
In the present study current social class, parental social class and social mobility have been compared in a series of 111 depressed patients of different diagnostic subgroups and of 97 non-psychiatric controls. Social class III was shown to be overrepresented in the unipolar, bipolar and unspecified groups. However, no differences concerning parental social class emerged. Unipolar and bipolar patients were more downwardly mobile than the neurotic depressives, the unspecified depressives and the controls.
Data from a Swedish cohort born in 1953 and studied through to 1983 is used to examine the relationship between the incidence of psychiatric disorder, parental socio-economic status and intergenerational social mobility. No difference is found in the over-all incidence of in-patient treatment between men and women, but there are considerable differences in the incidence of individual diagnoses. As found in other studies, rates of schizophrenia and substance abuse are greater among men than women, while rates of neurosis are greater among women. The data generally support the drift explanation of inequalities in health rather than the social causation hypothesis, but there is some variation by both gender and diagnosis. Little association is found between parental status, measured when cohort members were aged 10, and the incidence of disorder, except in the case of substance abuse, but there is a strong association between disorder and own status, measured at age 27 yr. By far the highest rates of disorder are found among those members of the cohort who are not in the workforce. Both schizophrenia and neurosis exhibit strong drift effects; there is some evidence that the children of higher status parents have a heightened risk of being diagnosed as schizophrenic; in the case of substance abuse both downwards social mobility and low class origins appear to be implicated in the cumulative incidence of in-patient treatment.
By longitudinally linking follow-up restudies of the National Child Development Study it has been possible to examine not only the well-known association of social class with the size of the child, but also with longitudinal growth, and, in addition the effect of social mobility on growth. The relation of type of occupation of the male head of household to height and weight of the child is seen at all ages (7, 11 and 16) but class influence on growth from 7 years onward is minimal. Social mobility is a significant factor especially in relation to stature but is not significantly related to growth after age 7 so the effect of underlying conditions on the children precedes the change of type of occupation by their fathers.
AIMS: Adverse social factors predict increased mortality. This study aimed to assess the influence of social class and marital status on mortality, adding an adult life course perspective. METHODS: In total, 32,907 males and 20,204 females were evaluated based on census data in Malmö, Sweden. Of these subjects, 22,444 males and 10,902 females also took part in health screening. The main outcomes were all-cause and cause-specific mortality rates in subgroups based on social class and marital status, either measured once or repeatedly in adult life. Results were based on a total of 522,807 years of follow-up in men (5,761 deaths) and 239,815 in women (1,354 deaths). RESULTS: Total and cardiovascular mortality were significantly higher in manual male employees with age-adjusted risk ratios (RR) of 1.7 (95% CI 1.5-1.9) and 1.6 (1.3-2.0) in skilled manual workers, and 2.0 (1.7-2.2) and 1.9 (1.6-2.3) in unskilled manual workers, compared with high-level non-manual employees. The differences remained after adjustment for baseline risk factors and prevalent cardiovascular disease, and were similar for women. Increased mortality risk was also documented for subjects who were divorced or unmarried (adjusted for social class), as well as being downward socially mobile or in a permanent low social class (manual) position. CONCLUSIONS: Social class based on occupation, either measured once or repeatedly in adult life, is associated with marked differences in mortality risk in middle-aged subjects. People who remain married/cohabiting or remarry are at lower risk of early death than people who remain unmarried or divorced.
Data from Project Metropolitan, a study of a Stockholm cohort born in 1953, is used to investigate the relationship between social mobility and mental health. The analysis was based on 6928 males and included data gathered on the parents of the cohort at birth and during childhood, at draft board examinations conducted at age 19 years, census records when the cohort was aged 27 years and hospital records for the period during which the cohort was aged 20-30 years. At the age of 19 years, the sons of unskilled working class parents had a prevalence of psychiatric disorder that was approximately twice that of those born into upper-middle class families and they were one-third as likely to be rated as having a high coping ability. There was a strong association between mental health and the occupational status of the cohort members themselves at the age of 27 years. The health of those not fully employed and, to a lesser extent, those classified as students, was especially problematic. The sons of parents who exhibited downwards mobility during the childhood of the cohort had a greater risk of psychiatric disorder during early adulthood than those with parents who either rose in status or remained static. Intergenerational mobility, comparing the occupation of sons at the age of 27 years with that of their fathers at the time of their birth, was associated with a clear gradient in mental health; sons who rose in status had high ratings for coping ability and a low risk of psychiatric disorder, those who fell in status had low ratings for coping ability and a relatively high risk of impairment. Comparisons between Project Metropolitan and the British National Child Development Study (NCDS) cohort suggest that the selective effects of health may be more important in determining intergenerational social mobility that has sometimes been claimed.
BACKGROUND: The Nordic countries, profiled as welfare states, are shown to have comparatively large relative socio-economic differences in mortality and comparatively high intergenerational mobility. The aim of this study was to analyse the role of risk indicator-associated social mobility (from childhood through to adulthood) in socio-economic mortality differences among Swedish men aged 35-50 years. METHODS: We used data on risk indicators for adult mortality (risk use of alcohol, smoking, low emotional control, psychiatric diagnosis, medication for nervous problems, contact with police and child care, experience of unemployment, low body height, low education) collected at compulsory conscription for military training among Swedish men at aged 18-20, fathers' socio-economic status at subjects' ages 9-11 years, data on subjects' socio-economic status at ages 34-36 years, and follow-up data on mortality during 1986-1999 (at ages 35-50 years). RESULTS: Persons in manual occupations in 1985 showed an elevated relative risk (RR) of mortality compared with stable non-manual employees regardless of the social position of their father (RR 1.75 among stable manual workers, and RR 1.74 among the downwardly mobile). In multivariate analyses, taking into account the risk indicators first operating in late adolescence, the increased mortality risk among stable manual workers and also among the downwardly mobile diminished considerably (RR 1.32 and 1.39, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that a substantial part of the socio-economic differences in mortality among middle-aged men had their origin in childhood circumstances. Risk indicator-associated social mobility was found to contribute substantially to an increase in the relative difference in mortality between male manual workers and non-manual employees.
Most Americans expect the nation's colleges and universities to promote the goal of social mobility to make it possible for anyone with ability and motivation to succeed. But according to Robert Haveman and Timothy Smeeding, income-related gaps both in access to and in success in higher education are large and growing. In the top-tier colleges and universities, almost three-quarters of the entering class is from the highest socioeconomic quartile. The pool of qualified youth is far greater than the number admitted and enrolled; hence America's top colleges could enroll more moderate- and low-income students without lowering their selection standards. Higher-income parents make enormous efforts to ensure their children's academic success, while children of poor parents begin the "college education game" later and with fewer resources. Students in poor and minority neighborhoods are less well prepared academically; ill prepared to select colleges, apply for admission, and secure acceptance; and poorly informed about the cost of attending college and the availability of needs-based financial aid. Sharply rising college prices during the 1980s and 1990s, together with the growing inequality of family income, have raised the cost of attending college far more for low-income students than for well-to-do students. Financial aid has risen more slowly, and the share targeted on low-income students has been falling. The authors offer bold policy recommendations to increase educational opportunities for low- and middle-income students. These involve the development of financing structures that will increase access for students from lower-income families. Public institutions could price tuition close to real costs and use added revenues to provide direct student aid for students from low-income families. Federal subsidies to students who attend wealthy institutions could be capped, with the savings redirected to students attending less well-endowed schools, both public and private. Finally, federal and state governments could redirect to lower-income students the financial support they now provide colleges and universities.
This study examined the relationship between social mobility and self-reported limiting long-term illness (LLTI) in West Indian and South Asian migrants in England and Wales present at the 1971, 1981 and 1991 Censuses in the Office for National Statistics Longitudinal Study. Most people remained in the same social position regardless of migrant status and those who remained most disadvantaged reported more LLTI than those who remained least disadvantaged. Amongst those who were mobile, upward mobility was more common than downward mobility for South Asians and West Indians but not for all other study members. The findings for the impact of downward mobility on LLTI were particularly striking. Migrants who were downwardly mobile reported more LLTI than all other study members. All other study members who were downwardly mobile reported more LLTI than people who remained in the least disadvantaged group they left but less than those who remained in the most disadvantaged group they joined. Downwardly mobile South Asians reported more LLTI than those of the least disadvantaged group but this was not significantly different from the most disadvantaged group they joined. Downwardly mobile West Indians reported also more LLTI than the least disadvantaged group they left but, in contrast, to the South Asians this appeared to be more than that of the disadvantaged group they joined. Empirical studies are needed to understand the context of social mobility and how this affects health-related behaviours and specific diseases among migrants. In a situation where migrants do not have established economic or social support, the loss of resources or self-esteem could have a disproportionate negative effect on their health.
This study examines intergenerational class mobility in Japan using cross-national comparisons with Western nations and cross-temporal comparisons of five national surveys conducted in postwar Japan. Cross-national comparisons highlight the similarity in relative mobility pattern between Japan and Western nations and at the same time the Japanese distinctiveness in absolute mobility rates especially regarding the demographic character of the Japanese manual working class. The results of cross-temporal comparisons of mobility pattern report some systematic trends in total mobility, inflow and outflow rates, reflecting the Japanese experience of late but rapid industrialization. The pattern of association between class origin and class destination, however, was stable in postwar Japan. It is therefore the combination of distinctive absolute mobility rates and similar relative mobility rates that characterizes the Japanese mobility pattern in comparison with the Western experience. Furthermore, Japan's distinctive pattern of postwar social mobility is characterized by a combination of rapidly changing absolute mobility rates and comparatively stable relative mobility rates.
Many social factors and social phenomena and their influence on health are now of interest for epidemiological research and also for health policy. On social phenomenon of interest is mobility in the social structure of society. In this prospective study of a sample of 50-year-old men born in 1913 in Gothenburg, Sweden, it was possible to study intergenerational social mobility and different measures of ill-health, like health complaints, incidence of myocardial infarction and mortality. The results of the study indicate that individuals who find themselves in a lower social group than that of their father at the age of 50 exhibit a somewhat poorer subjective state of health and report more complaints and symptoms at the age of 60. They also tended to be slightly more at risk with regard to myocardial infarction, but there were no mortality differences in a long-term follow-up.
This paper considers the role of social mobility to hypertension among blacks. Using a nationally representative sample of the adult black population, this research finds no effects of intergenerational socioeconomic mobility. Minimal effects are found for geographic mobility; geographic moves bears a small positive relationship to hypertension. The implications for a theory of mobility effects on black health are discussed.