Trends in the Relationship between Infant Mortality and Socioeconomic Status

Abstract

This paper reports some of the results of an ecological analysis of the relationship between infant mortality and economic status in metropolitan Ohio at three points in time (1959–1961, 1969–1971 and 1979–1981). The data presented clearly reveal the adverse mortality consequences of alow economic status. In spite of some remarkable declines in the infant death rate since 1960, most notably in neonatal mortality, the inverse socioeconomic differential in 1980 is as wide as it ever was, and it characterizes both whites and nonwhites and both the neonatal and postneonatal components of infant mortality. Moreover, in sharp contrast to the situation a generation ago, the neonatal death rate has emerged as a major contributor to the overall relationship between socioeconomic status and infant mortality. It is suggested that this situation reflects the failure of recent advances in maternal and infant care programs to reach those lower status members of the society that are most in need of them.     

How Migrant Status Affects Health Beyond Socioeconomic Status: Evidence from Austria

The debate on health inequalities usually focuses on the interplay between socioeconomic status (SES) and health, where it is widely accepted that the former influences the latter. However, little is known on whether the influence of SES on health is sufficient to explain the observed lower health statuses among various migrant groups in European countries. This paper presents a model that integrates the influences of SES and migrant status on health and tests its implications empirically for Austria. Several ordered logit regressions are performed, whose results show that particular migrant groups are disadvantaged with respect to health. In addition, the overall influence of migrant status on health is considerably stronger for women than for men, while health status of men is influenced by interactions between migrant status and occupational status.     

Factors Affecting Infant Mortality in Rural Bangladesh: Results from a Retrospective Sample Survey1

Abstract The primary objective of this paper is to assess the relative contribution of different socioeconomic and environmental factors affecting infant mortality in a rural area of Bangladesh. Data from detailed interviews with 1,787 women of reproductive ages were collected and analyzed. A multivariate approach was employed to examine the relative importance of different correlates of infant mortality. Birth interval and contraceptive use emerged as the strongest correlates of infant mortality. In addition, landholding size, birth of preferred sex, mother's age, and prior pregnancy loss had significant effects on infant mortality. The analysis suggests that some aspects of childbearing result in higher risks of infant mortality. Infant mortality could be reduced by altering the spacing of births and avoiding births at early reproductive ages. A positive impact on infant mortality could also result from improvements in economic conditions.     

Child Mortality and Socioeconomic Status: An Examination of Differentials by Migration Status in South Africa1

This study examines child mortality and socioeconomic status among migrants and nonmigrants. It also examines child mortality by migration status in all quintiles of socioeconomic status, comparing immigrants to the native‐born and internal migrants to nonmigrants. The results show that among migrants, child mortality decreased faster as socioeconomic status increased than among nonmigrants. The results also show a cross‐over in the likelihood of child mortality by immigration status as socioeconomic status increased. In the poorest socioeconomic quintiles immigrants had a greater likelihood of child mortality than the native‐born while in the wealthiest quintiles child mortality was greater among the native‐born.     

Infant Mortality and Racially and Culturally Sensitive Care:

This paper addresses a public health issue-infant mortality-of which society has been aware since at least 1900. However, this issue does not receive the public and professional attention given to many other public health issues. The aim of this paper is to review the problem and present a synopsis of initiatives that have been taken to reconsider and revive, from a social work perspective, the person-environment concern, focus, and commitment to reduce infant mortality, especially among Blacks and other racial-ethnic minorities. The proposal calls for the help of inter-related and reinvigorated micro, mezzo, and macro levels of social work intervention in conjunction with the intervention of other professions, government officials, community leaders, and consumers of services.     

Socioeconomic Status and Age: The Effect of Income Sources and Portfolios on U.S. Adult Mortality

Despite the persistent inverse relationship between family income and mortality, no one has examined the effect of distinct income sources or income portfolios on mortality risk. We link the National Health Interview Survey to the Multiple Cause of Death file and use hazard models to examine income-related mortality across four age groups. Income from jobs, self-employment, interest, and dividends each predicts lower mortality at the younger, middle, and early old ages. Diverse income portfolios buffer against mortality risk at all ages, net of the amount of income received. These findings illuminate the various dimensions of income that shape U.S. mortality risks.     

Elite Colleges and Socioeconomic Status

Elite colleges have long been associated with socioeconomic reproduction, passing along elite social standing to children of middle and upper‐middle socioeconomic status (SES) parents. How has that role changed during the expansion of American higher education over the past 50 years? Have elite colleges and universities also become providers of socioeconomic mobility? In this essay, I outline recent demographic, admissions, and financial aid changes at these institutions and compare both in‐college experiences and college outcomes between low‐SES and more‐affluent students at elite colleges. I argue that although elite colleges and universities do include greater numbers of low‐SES students than in earlier generations and have great potential for even further inclusion, they remain far from serving as broad engines of socioeconomic mobility.     

A Socioeconomic Scale for Canada: Measuring Occupational Status from the Census

Cet article présente une nouvelle échelle professionnelle pour la classification nationale des professions (CNP) au Canada. En premier, l'on discute le contexte historique dans lequel la production des échelles des professions, faites par des sociologues aux Canada et aux États-Unis, s'est réalisée. La méthodologie de la récente échelle Nam–Powers–Boyd utilisée aux États-Unis est ensuite appliquée au recensement des professions de 2001. Celle-ci sert à créer des scores des statuts professionnels pour les titres professionnels de la classification nationale des professions (CNP 2001) à Statistiques Canada. Ces scores soulignent les inégalités démographiques et socio-économiques qui existent parmi les groupes au Canada. L'article se termine par une discussion des débats courants concernant l'utilisation des scores composites professionnels.
This paper provides a new occupational scale for the Canadian National Occupational Classification system. The historical context for occupational scales produced by sociologists in Canada and the United States is first discussed. The methodology used in the recent Nam–Powers–Boyd scale in the United States then is applied to the 2001 census of occupations to construct occupational status scores for the occupational titles found in the National Occupational Classification for Statistics (2001) at Statistics Canada. The occupational status scores highlight inequalities existing among groups in Canada along demographic and socioeconomic dimensions. The paper concludes with a discussion of current debates over the use of composite occupational scores.     

Unions and Employment Growth: Evidence from State Economic Recoveries

We test the hypothesis that in an economic recovery, unionization negatively affects job creation. We examine state-level job growth following two recent recessions, those with troughs in November 1982 and March 1991. In the five years following the troughs, we assess whether variations across states in union membership and right-to-work laws affect the rate of job growth. We find evidence that links union influence to slower job growth during an economic recovery, a finding consistent with previous studies reporting that unions negatively affect average employment and employment growth.

Socioeconomic Status and Early Adolescent Self-Esteem*

This study is a replication of a recent assessment of the relationship between social class and self-esteem, and the variables that intervene on this relationship. The purpose is to replicate the methods used to explore further this relationship by attempting to replicate the findings reported by Demo and Savin-Williams (1983) in another population. Only one of the four hypotheses tested received support thereby indirectly supporting the null relationship theory of no relationship between socioeconomic status and self-esteem. Implications of the findings also are addressed.     

Labor Force Participation and Socioeconomic Status*

This study examined the relationship between labor force participation by more than one family member and the socioeconomic status of the family, as measured by the Census SES score. The data were derived from a special tabulation of the 1960 Census five percent sample tape. In general, labor force participation by more than one family member was associated with higher SES scores in both white and Negro families. Multiple wage earners in white families were associated with “above the middle” level scores, whereas in Negro families multiple wage earners appear to contribute to barely or almost attaining middle level scores.     

Intergenerational Persistence of Skills and Socioeconomic Status

This paper describes how the socioeconomic status (SES) of parents relates to the formation and development of the skills and preferences of their teenage children, which have proven to be key to understanding differences in life outcomes. The study used data from a novel survey, conducted in Mexico, that recorded cognitive and non-cognitive skills and social preferences of both parents and children. It analyzed the relationship between the SES of parents and their children’s skills, and found that children’s skills were consistently related to parental skills, and that intergenerational persistence of skills was higher for cognitive than for non-cognitive skills or social preferences. It also found that the cognitive skills gap between the first and fifth quintile of SES was related mainly to characteristics like parents’ own skills, years of schooling, and aspirations for their children, but that these parental characteristics were less important in explaining non-cognitive skills and preferences.     

Welfare State and Social Enterprise in Transition: Evidence from Serbia

This paper analyses welfare regime changes in Serbia and their impact on social enterprise development in the last two decades. We cover the period of significant transition-related reforms within the welfare state, with important implications on the position of these enterprises. Using data gathered from the qualitative field research, our study shows that there are two broad groups of factors that are important for development of the new generation of social enterprises, those that emerged in the last decade with an idea to foster entrepreneurial spirit and expanded into new domains other than those providing assistance to the marginalized groups. First, their decision to enter the social economy sector still depends on the environment created by the state. Secondly, their sustainability is affected by the factors typically found in any other enterprise of comparable scale like business skills, capacity to form networks and partner with relevant stakeholders.     

Rural Income-Generating Programs and Fertility Limitation: Evidence from a Microdemographic Study in Nepal1

Abstract Participation in rural development programs that organize members into local cooperative groups can alter the decision-making environment facing couples to reflect some of the negative consequences of childbearing. This study uses data from Nepal, collected through a combination of ethnographic and survey methods, to test the effects of participation in such a development program on fertility behavior. Results demonstrate that program participants are much more likely to use contraceptives to limit their fertility than are non-participants. The study provides empirical support for theories linking this type of institutional change to fertility and indicates a policy option that can allow some negative consequences of childbearing to affect couples' fertility decisions.     

Socioeconomic Status and Mental Illness in Japan*

Abstract Since the pioneering work of Faris and Dunham (1938), a number of studies in the United States have documented an inverse association between socioeconomic status (SES) and mental illness both at the aggregate and the individual levels, and both for the treated and the general population. However, there are few studies of whether this relationship holds in other countries. This study examines socioeconomic characteristics and mental illness in Japan, which has a very different social stratification system from that of the United States. It was found that, at the aggregate level, the “inverse” association between socioeconomic characteristics and the rate of treated mental illness does not hold in Japan. Instead, the relationship is curvilinear: mental illness is higher in districts with large numbers of blue collar and upper white collar workers than in districts with large numbers of lower white collar workers. The effect of SES on mental illness operates through economic stress embedded in the macro social context. Because different social structures lead to different patterns of economic stress, the inverse relationship between socioeconomic status and mental health cannot be assumed to hold in all countries.     

Farmers' Contribution to Agricultural Social Capital: Evidence from Southern Spain

Social capital is the whole set of shared norms, values, attitudes, and beliefs that promote cooperation among individuals within the community and that has proved to be a key factor in explaining development processes. This article aims to provide an analytically reliable notion of social capital within the farming sector and a methodological tool for empirically measuring how social capital is accumulated at the farmer level. The theoretical framework proposed is based on the multidimensionality of the complex concept of social capital. Thus, to develop a comprehensive index for social capital, we identify three dimensions of the concept, structural, relational, and cognitive social capital, each one also comprising several subdimensions. This integrative approach permits creation of a composite indicator of the agricultural social capital accumulated at the farmer level, further identifying socioeconomic factors that influence its accumulation at that level. We empirically apply this methodological approach to farmers in Andalusia in southern Spain as a case study. This research provides an interesting starting point for informing policymakers about social capital and helping them implement the necessary programs to facilitate sustainable development in the agricultural sector.     

Race,Socioeconomic Status,and Self-Esteem: The Impact of Religiosity

This research examines two factors that have an impact on the self-esteem of African Americans and whites: religion and socioeconomic status (SES). Using data from the National Survey of Families and Households, we find that for whites, belief in the Bible (i.e., that it is the literal word of God) and self-identifying as fundamentalist were significant predictors of self-esteem. For African Americans, belief in the Bible and being Catholic were significant predictors of self-esteem. However, the association between belief in the Bible and self-esteem was stronger for African Americans than whites. SES was positively associated with self-esteem for both groups. The interactions between SES and the measures of religiosity reveal a greater impact on self-esteem for lower SES respondents. This was especially true for African Americans. These findings are discussed in light of the resource compensation hypothesis.     

Socioeconomic Status and Health Well-Being during Later Life: Potential Mediating Factors

This study explores the socioeconomic status (SES)-perceived health association, with special attention on living arrangements. It improves upon existing explanations of causal mechanisms underlying the impact of SES on health among the elderly. Using Health and Retirement Study to run ordered logistic regression, it addresses the importance of living arrangements for self-reported health. Income and education are both important predictors of self-reported health and that after controlling them, living arrangements also affect self-reported health. Future research should highlight nuanced measures of living arrangements and should explore longitudinal analyses to determine the long-term effects of these factors on self-reported health.     

Socioeconomic Status and Body Mass Index in Canada: Exploring Measures and Mechanisms

We examine the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES), sociodemographic characteristics, lifestyle behaviors (fruit and vegetable intake, exercise, smoking, and alcohol consumption), and body mass index (BMI) using the Canadian Community Health Survey 2.1. We explore two different measures of SES, education and income, to elucidate material and cultural explanations of the SES‐BMI relationship. Results vary significantly by gender, highlighting the complexity of the relationship between SES, sociodemographic and lifestyle factors, and BMI. We suggest that body weight is still a gendered status symbol, and that cultural and psychosocial factors may be more important than material factors in perpetuating this health inequality.     

Socioeconomic Status and Parenting Priorities: Child Independence and Obedience Around the World

This study investigates the extent to which both national and personal socioeconomic status shape national norms and parenting priorities concerning child socialization. Data came from the European Values Survey, the World Values Survey, and the World Bank Data Catalog, resulting in 227,431 parents from 90 nations across fives study waves (1981–2008). Child independence was more popular in nations with greater wealth and more highly educated populations; obedience was more popular in nations with less wealth and lower percentages of educated and urban populations. Personal socioeconomic status predicted individual parents' prioritization of child independence and obedience; higher social class predicted a greater likelihood of endorsing independence and not endorsing obedience. Time‐slope estimation across study waves revealed that parents' prioritization of independence and obedience may rise over time in developing nations. Results provide implications for education, practice, and policy on cultural variations in parenting.