Social mobility and health over the life course.

• In Event: 30620 - Section on Inequality, Poverty, and Mobility Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 7: The Demography of Inequality

Abstract

This study aims to understand the association of life-course intergenerational social mobility with self-rated health in the US. Research shows that education has health-enhancing benefits within and across adjacent generations. Highly educated people tend to fare better with respect to self-assessed overall health, physical functioning, morbidity, and mortality. Additionally, studies suggest that the conditions people experience in childhood can influence their health well into middle and older age. However, the effects of social mobility – moving across different socioeconomic positions – on health at each life course stage, such as young adulthood, middle age, and older adulthood, are less known. Using integrative data analysis and a novel mobility contrast model method, I estimate the effect of social mobility on health in young adulthood, midlife, and older adulthood. The findings show that staying at the same education level as one’s parents is linked to how people rate their health at every stage of life, but the strongest effects are seen in older adults. This suggests that advantages or disadvantages in health can accumulate over time. Interestingly, upward mobility (achieving a higher education level than one’s parents) was associated with slightly lower self-rated health in young adulthood. This may be because the effort required to climb the social ladder at a younger age can come with added stress or challenges. Overall, this study highlights how social mobility and education levels across generations shape health outcomes throughout life.

Author

• Ekaterina Baldina, Indiana University-Bloomington