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Health-related social mobility

A comparison of currently employed men and women in Britain and Finland

Department of Social Policy, Box 18, 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland, Correspondence address: Dr. Ossi Rahkonen Department of Social Policy University of Helsinki Box 18 FI-00014 Helsinki Finland Tel. +358 9 191 7779 Fax: +358 9 191 7764 E-mail: Ossi.Rahkonen{at}Helsinki.Fi

Sara Arber

Department of Sociology, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey GU25XH, England

Eero Lahelma

Department of Public Health, Box 41, 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland

Selective health-related social mobility has been suggested as one possible explanation for health inequalities. The aim of this paper is to examine the size and significance of the contribution which health-related social mobility makes to social class differences in health. We do this by examining the association between intergenerational social mobility and health among currently employed men and women in Britain and Finland. We used comparable nationally representative interview surveys from Britain and Finland. The British data is derived from the General Household Survey for 1988 and 1989, and the Finnish data from the 1986 Survey on Living Conditions. Health measures included limiting long-standing illness and self-assessed health as below good. Social mobility was measured comparing the respondent's class of origin (father's occupation) with his/her class of destination (own current occupation). Social structural changes and related social mobility have been more dramatic in Finland than in Britain during the last few decades. Downward mobility has been relatively rare, and mobility has taken place predominantly upwards. In Finland downward mobility from upper non-manual to manual worker was associated with a somewhat higher risk of limiting long-standing illness than expected among men as well as women. However, there was no statistically significant interaction effect on health between the respondent's father's occupational class and his/her own current class. In Britain, neither self-assessed health nor limiting long-standing illness were related to social mobility. Some weak evidence for health-related downward social mobility was found for currently employed Finnish men and women, but not for their British counterparts. Moreover, the evidence is weaker for self-assessed health than for limiting long-standing illness. Where social mobility may have been health-related, it concerns very rare and small groups; therefore health inequalities among the currently employed cannot be explained by intergenerational health-related social mobility.

Key Words: health-related social mobility • health inequalities • comparison • Britain • Finland.

Scandinavian Journal of Public Health, Vol. 25, No. 2, 83-92 (1997)
DOI: 10.1177/140349489702500205


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