IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v15y2018i12p2644-d185456.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Health Consequences of Social Mobility in Contemporary China

Author

Listed:
  • Fei Yan

    (Department of Sociology, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China)

  • Guangye He

    (Department of Sociology, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210008, China)

  • Yunsong Chen

    (Department of Sociology, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210008, China)

Abstract

Although numerous studies have shown the importance of an individual’s socioeconomic status on his or her self-rated health status, less well-known is whether self-perceived class mobility, a measure highly correlated with an individual’s de facto social class and past mobility experiences, affects self-rated health. In this paper, we attempt to fill the gap by examining how perception of class mobility is associated with self-rated health. Using eight waves of Chinese General Social Survey data spanning the years 2005 to 2015, we conducted an analysis at the micro (individual) level and the macro (provincial) level. Analyses at both levels yielded consistent results. At the individual level, we employed ordered logistic regression and found that the perception of experiencing downward mobility was associated with significantly lower self-rated health in both rural and urban areas compared with those who consider themselves to be upwardly mobile or immobile. At the provincial level, the findings from static panel analysis further revealed that there is a positive relationship between the self-perceived class mobility and self-rated health level.

Suggested Citation

  • Fei Yan & Guangye He & Yunsong Chen, 2018. "The Health Consequences of Social Mobility in Contemporary China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(12), pages 1-15, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:15:y:2018:i:12:p:2644-:d:185456
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/12/2644/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/12/2644/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alberto Palloni, 2006. "Reproducing inequalities: Luck, wallets, and the enduring effects of childhood health," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 43(4), pages 587-615, November.
    2. Simandan, Dragos, 2018. "Rethinking the health consequences of social class and social mobility," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 258-261.
    3. Lorenzo Cappellari, 2007. "Earnings mobility among Italian low-paid workers," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 20(2), pages 465-482, April.
    4. Cruces, Guillermo & Perez-Truglia, Ricardo & Tetaz, Martin, 2013. "Biased perceptions of income distribution and preferences for redistribution: Evidence from a survey experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 100-112.
    5. James P. Smith, 1999. "Healthy Bodies and Thick Wallets: The Dual Relation between Health and Economic Status," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 145-166, Spring.
    6. P. Clifford & A. F. Heath, 1993. "The Political Consequences of Social Mobility," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 156(1), pages 51-61, January.
    7. Andreas Knabe & Alexander Plum, 2013. "Low-wage Jobs — Springboard to High-paid Ones?," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 27(3), pages 310-330, September.
    8. Lee, Miaw-Chwen & Huang, Nicole, 2015. "Changes in self-perceived economic satisfaction and mortality at old ages: Evidence from a survey of middle-aged and elderly adults in Taiwan," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 1-8.
    9. Mishra, Sandeep & Carleton, R. Nicholas, 2015. "Subjective relative deprivation is associated with poorer physical and mental health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 144-149.
    10. Elliott, Susan J., 2018. "50 years of medical health geography(ies) of health and wellbeing," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 196(C), pages 206-208.
    11. D'Addio, Anna Cristina & Rosholm, Michael, 2005. "Exits from temporary jobs in Europe: A competing risks analysis," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 449-468, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Xiaoguang Fan & Fei Yan & Wei Yan, 2020. "Better Choice, Better Health? Social Integration and Health Inequality among International Migrants in Hangzhou, China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(13), pages 1-13, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Simandan, Dragos, 2018. "Rethinking the health consequences of social class and social mobility," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 258-261.
    2. Alexander Mosthaf & Thorsten Schank & Claus Schnabel, 2014. "Low-wage employment versus unemployment: Which one provides better prospects for women?," IZA Journal of European Labor Studies, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 3(1), pages 1-17, December.
    3. Luo, Weixiang & Xie, Yu, 2020. "Economic growth, income inequality and life expectancy in China," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 256(C).
    4. Ma, Yuanyuan & Nolan, Anne & Smith, James P., 2018. "The value of education to health: Evidence from Ireland," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 14-25.
    5. Plum, Alexander & Knies, Gundi, 2015. "Earnings prospects for low-paid workers higher than for the unemployed but only in high-pay areas with high unemployment," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 112845, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    6. Alexander Mosthaf, 2014. "Do Scarring Effects of Low-Wage Employment and Non-Employment Differ BETWEEN Levels of Qualification?," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 61(2), pages 154-177, May.
    7. Schnitzlein, Daniel D. & Stephani, Jens, 2016. "Locus of Control and low-wage mobility," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 164-177.
    8. Armbruster, Stephanie, 2020. "The fair-minded rich and healthy? (Youth) unemployment, inequality and fairness concerns in preferences for redistribution," Working papers 2020/02, Faculty of Business and Economics - University of Basel.
    9. Plum, Alexander & Knies, Gundi, 2015. "Does neighbourhood unemployment affect the springboard effect of low pay?," ISER Working Paper Series 2015-20, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    10. Fang Wang & Haitao Zheng, 2021. "Do Public Pensions Improve Mental Wellbeing? Evidence from the New Rural Society Pension Insurance Program," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(5), pages 1-14, March.
    11. Cheng, Lingguo & Liu, Hong & Zhang, Ye & Zhao, Zhong, 2018. "The health implications of social pensions: Evidence from China's new rural pension scheme," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 53-77.
    12. Diane Coffey & Ashwini Deshpande & Jeffrey Hammer & Dean Spears, 2019. "Local Social Inequality, Economic Inequality, and Disparities in Child Height in India," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 56(4), pages 1427-1452, August.
    13. Christelis, Dimitris & Dobrescu, Loretti I. & Motta, Alberto, 2020. "Early life conditions and financial risk-taking in older age," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 17(C).
    14. Francesco Capozza & Ingar Haaland & Christopher Roth & Johannes Wohlfart, 2021. "Studying Information Acquisition in the Field: A Practical Guide and Review," CEBI working paper series 21-15, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. The Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI).
    15. Collewet, Marion & Fairley, Kim & Kessels, Roselinde & Knoef, Marike & van Vliet, Olaf, 2024. "The design of welfare: unraveling taxpayers' preferences," OSF Preprints 4am7e, Center for Open Science.
    16. Alvaro Forteza & Cecilia Noboa, 2019. "Perceptions of institutional quality and justification of tax evasion," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 30(4), pages 367-382, December.
    17. Galama, Titus & Kapteyn, Arie, 2011. "Grossman’s missing health threshold," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 1044-1056.
    18. Elena Casquel & Antoni Cunyat, "undated". "The Welfare Cost of Business Cycles in an Economy with Nonclearing Markets," Working Papers 2005-19, FEDEA.
    19. Cockx, Bart & Robin, Stéphane R. & Goebel, Christian, 2006. "Income Support Policies for Part-Time Workers: A Stepping-Stone to Regular Jobs? An Application to Young Long-Term Unemployed Women in Belgium," IZA Discussion Papers 2432, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Lia Pacelli & Silvia Pasqua & Claudia Villosio, 2007. "What Does the Stork Bring to Women’s Working Career?," LABORatorio R. Revelli Working Papers Series 58, LABORatorio R. Revelli, Centre for Employment Studies.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:15:y:2018:i:12:p:2644-:d:185456. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.