IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/soinre/v119y2014i2p495-514.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Health Implications of Socioeconomic Characteristics, Subjective Social Status, and Perceptions of Inequality: An Empirical Study of China

Author

Listed:
  • Chunping Han

Abstract

This study explores how health is associated with socioeconomic status, subjective social status, and perceptions of inequality simultaneously. Two health outcomes (self-reported health and psychological distress) are examined, and the subtlety of their relationships with each of the three dimensions of inequality is probed. Data used come from a nationally representative sample survey conducted in China. Several findings emerge from empirical analyses: (1) Overall, the three dimensions of social inequality are associated with self-reported health and psychological distress net of each other and other control variables; (2) among focal socioeconomic characteristics, income and Chinese Communist Party membership are significantly associated with both health outcomes, education exhibits a robust effect on self-reported health, and rural and migrant statuses are linked to less distress; (3) subjective social status in comparisons with both socially proximal and broad referents is associated with both health outcomes, and the association with downward comparisons is more salient than with upward comparisons; and (4) perceived degree and perceived sources of inequality in society show varying relationships with the two health outcomes. These findings add to our understanding of the multidimensionality and complexity of social inequality in relation to health. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Suggested Citation

  • Chunping Han, 2014. "Health Implications of Socioeconomic Characteristics, Subjective Social Status, and Perceptions of Inequality: An Empirical Study of China," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 119(2), pages 495-514, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:soinre:v:119:y:2014:i:2:p:495-514
    DOI: 10.1007/s11205-013-0514-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11205-013-0514-5
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11205-013-0514-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Winkleby, M.A. & Jatulis, D.E. & Frank, E. & Fortmann, S.P., 1992. "Socioeconomic status and health: How education, income, and occupation contribute to risk factors for cardiovascular disease," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 82(6), pages 816-820.
    2. John KNIGHT, 2008. "Reform, Growth, and Inequality in China," Asian Economic Policy Review, Japan Center for Economic Research, vol. 3(1), pages 140-158, June.
    3. Wilkinson, Richard G & Pickett, Kate E., 2006. "Income inequality and population health: A review and explanation of the evidence," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(7), pages 1768-1784, April.
    4. Singh-Manoux, Archana & Adler, Nancy E. & Marmot, Michael G., 2003. "Subjective social status: its determinants and its association with measures of ill-health in the Whitehall II study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 56(6), pages 1321-1333, March.
    5. Wolff, Lisa S. & Subramanian, S.V. & Acevedo-Garcia, Dolores & Weber, Deanne & Kawachi, Ichiro, 2010. "Compared to whom? Subjective social status, self-rated health, and referent group sensitivity in a diverse US sample," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(12), pages 2019-2028, June.
    6. Oshio, Takashi & Urakawa, Kunio, 2013. "The association between perceived income inequality and subjective well-being: Evidence from a social survey in Japan," CIS Discussion paper series 579, Center for Intergenerational Studies, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    7. Kawachi, I. & Kennedy, B.P. & Lochner, K. & Prothrow-Stith, D., 1997. "Social capital, income inequality, and mortality," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 87(9), pages 1491-1498.
    8. Oshio, Takashi & Kobayashi, Miki, 2009. "Income inequality, area-level poverty, perceived aversion to inequality, and self-rated health in Japan," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 317-326, August.
    9. Dunn, James R. & Veenstra, Gerry & Ross, Nancy, 2006. "Psychosocial and neo-material dimensions of SES and health revisited: Predictors of self-rated health in a Canadian national survey," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(6), pages 1465-1473, March.
    10. Lin, Nan & Lai, Gina, 1995. "Urban stress in China," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 41(8), pages 1131-1145, October.
    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. Guangsu Zhou & Lizhong Liu & Yang Song, 2022. "Inequality of opportunity and mass incidents: Evidence from China," Economics of Transition and Institutional Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(3), pages 465-488, July.
    2. Jason R. D. Rarick & Carly Tubbs Dolan & Wen‐Jui Han & Jun Wen, 2018. "Relations Between Socioeconomic Status, Subjective Social Status, and Health in Shanghai, China," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 99(1), pages 390-405, March.
    3. Attila Gáspár & Carmen Cervone & Federica Durante & Anne Maass & Caterina Suitner & Roberta Rosa Valtorta & Michela Vezzoli, 2023. "A Twofold Subjective Measure of Income Inequality," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 168(1), pages 25-43, August.
    4. Yunyun Jiang & Haitao Zheng & Tianhao Zhao, 2019. "Socioeconomic Status and Morbidity Rate Inequality in China: Based on NHSS and CHARLS Data," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(2), pages 1-19, January.
    5. Xiaoxing Ran & Tiange Huang & Gong Chen, 2022. "Subjective Socioeconomic Status, Class Mobility and Health Disparities of Older People," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(21), pages 1-13, October.

    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. Präg, Patrick & Mills, Melinda C. & Wittek, Rafael, 2016. "Subjective socioeconomic status and health in cross-national comparison," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 84-92.
    2. Inaba, Yoji & Wada, Yuri & Ichida, Yukinobu & Nishikawa, Masashi, 2015. "Which part of community social capital is related to life satisfaction and self-rated health? A multilevel analysis based on a nationwide mail survey in Japan," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 169-182.
    3. Wilkinson, Richard G. & Pickett, Kate E., 2007. "The problems of relative deprivation: Why some societies do better than others," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(9), pages 1965-1978, November.
    4. Tommy Haugan & Sally Muggleton & Arnhild Myhr, 2021. "Psychological distress in late adolescence: The role of inequalities in family affluence and municipal socioeconomic characteristics in Norway," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(7), pages 1-25, July.
    5. Matthew A. Andersson, 2018. "An Odd Ladder to Climb: Socioeconomic Differences Across Levels of Subjective Social Status," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 136(2), pages 621-643, April.
    6. Siahpush, Mohammad & Borland, Ron & Taylor, Janet & Singh, Gopal K. & Ansari, Zahid & Serraglio, Adrian, 2006. "The association of smoking with perception of income inequality, relative material well-being, and social capital," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(11), pages 2801-2812, December.
    7. Georg Kanitsar, 2022. "The Inequality-Trust Nexus Revisited: At What Level of Aggregation Does Income Inequality Matter for Social Trust?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 163(1), pages 171-195, August.
    8. Herzer, Dierk & Nunnenkamp, Peter, 2015. "Income inequality and health: Evidence from developed and developing countries," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 9, pages 1-56.
    9. Michael Cauvel & Miguel Alejandro Sanchez, 2023. "Life Expectancy and the Labor Share in the U.S," Working Papers PKWP2308, Post Keynesian Economics Society (PKES).
    10. Bilger, Marcel & Carrieri, Vincenzo, 2013. "Health in the cities: When the neighborhood matters more than income," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 1-11.
    11. Layte, R. & Christopher Whelan, 2013. "GINI DP 78: Who Feels Inferior? A Test of the Status Anxiety Hypothesis of Social Inequalities in Health," GINI Discussion Papers 78, AIAS, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies.
    12. Yonghua Li & Qinchuan Ran & Song Yao & Likun Ding, 2023. "Evaluation and Optimization of the Layout of Community Public Service Facilities for the Elderly: A Case Study of Hangzhou," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-29, March.
    13. Garbarski, Dana, 2010. "Perceived social position and health: Is there a reciprocal relationship?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(5), pages 692-699, March.
    14. Luo, Weixiang & Xie, Yu, 2020. "Economic growth, income inequality and life expectancy in China," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 256(C).
    15. 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.
    16. Daza, Sebastian & palloni, alberto, 2018. "Income Mobility, Income Inequality and Mortality in the U.S," SocArXiv gdz2a, Center for Open Science.
    17. Chen, Zhuo & Gotway Crawford, Carol A., 2012. "The role of geographic scale in testing the income inequality hypothesis as an explanation of health disparities," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(6), pages 1022-1031.
    18. Cristina Blanco Pérez & Xavier Ramos, 2010. "Polarization And Health," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 56(1), pages 171-185, March.
    19. Emma Zang & Anthony R. Bardo, 2019. "Objective and Subjective Socioeconomic Status, Their Discrepancy, and Health: Evidence from East Asia," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 143(2), pages 765-794, June.
    20. Owen O'Donnell & Eddy Van Doorslaer & Tom Van Ourti, 2013. "Health and Inequality," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 13-170/V, Tinbergen Institute.

    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:spr:soinre:v:119:y:2014:i:2:p:495-514. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.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.