Socioeconomic Status and Health: Dimensions and Mechanisms / David M. Cutler, Adriana Lleras-Muney, Tom Vogl.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cutler, David M.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Lleras-Muney, Adriana.

Vogl, Tom.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w14333.

NBER working paper series no. w14333

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Socioeconomic Status and Health

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2008.

Summary:

This paper reviews the evidence on the well-known positive association between socioeconomic status and health. We focus on four dimensions of socioeconomic status -- education, financial resources, rank, and race and ethnicity -- paying particular attention to how the mechanisms linking health to each of these dimensions diverge and coincide. The extent to which socioeconomic advantage causes good health varies, both across these four dimensions and across the phases of the lifecycle. Circumstances in early life play a crucial role in determining the co-evolution of socioeconomic status and health throughout adulthood. In adulthood, a considerable part of the association runs from health to socioeconomic status, at least in the case of wealth. The diversity of pathways casts doubt upon theories that treat socioeconomic status as a unified concept.

Notes:

Print version record

September 2008.