When More Education Is Not Enough: Subjective Social Status, Educational Expansion, and Health Inequality

• In Event: Inequality, Poverty, and Mobility Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): 11. Intergenerational Inequality and Mobility

Abstract

This paper examines why large-scale higher education expansion has not translated into commensurate improvements in subjective health. Using a mechanism-based age–period–cohort (APC) framework and repeated cross-sectional data from Taiwan, it identifies subjective social status as a key psychosocial mechanism linking education to health inequality. The findings contribute to broader debates on educational expansion, positional goods, and health stratification.

Author

• Ssu-Chin Peng, Department of Sociology, Tunghai University, Taiwan