Promising Dreams or Precarious Lives? Intragenerational Social Mobility Trajectory and Midlife Health

• In Event: Inequality, Poverty, and Mobility Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): 5. Inequality and Health

Abstract

This study examines the health consequences of intragenerational social mobility in the United States by conceptualizing mobility as a long-term occupational trajectory rather than as a discrete transition between two time points. Using sequence analysis on the NLSY79 cohort, the study identifies distinct patterns of occupational mobility from ages 25 to 50 and evaluates their associations with health outcomes at age 50. The results show substantial prevalence in intragenerational mobility experiences, with more than 40% of respondents experiencing some kind of occupational mobility, and most individuals undergoing multiple status transitions over adulthood. Preliminary findings suggest clear health gradients across mobility trajectory clusters. Individuals with stable high-status trajectories exhibit the best health outcomes in midlife, while those with persistent unemployment or downward mobility into unemployment experience the poorest health. The results also provide evidence consistent with the “falling from grace” and “rising from rags” framework, indicating the beneficial effects of upward mobility and the detrimental effects of downward mobility. Beyond direction and distance of mobility, measures of trajectory instability (entropy, turbulence, and number of transitions) are consistently associated with worse midlife health, suggesting that unstable status trajectories may have independent health consequences. By adopting a trajectory-based approach, this study provides a more comprehensive account of intragenerational mobility and its health implications. The findings highlight both the opportunities and risks associated with increasingly dynamic and flexible labor market careers.

Author

• Ye Yuan, Emory University