Height & income: Labor returns of health in Mexico from 2000 to 2018.

Investment in health has been proposed as a mechanism to promote upward social mobility. Previous analyses have reported inconsistent estimates of the returns to investment in health in Mexico based on different models for different years. We aim to estimate returns for Mexico using data from four time points Adult height and labor income are drawn from the periodical national health and nutrition surveys-a group of relatively standardized surveys-that are representative of individuals living in the country in 2000, 2006, 2012 & 2018. These surveys collect anthropometric measurements and information on individuals' labor income. We estimated Mincerian models separately for men and women using OLS, Heckman, instrumental variables, and Heckman with instrumental variables models. Our results indicate significant and positive returns to health for the four surveys, similar in magnitude across years for women and with variations for men. By 2018, returns to health were about 7.4% per additional centimeter in height for females and 9.3% for males. Investments in health and nutrition during childhood and adolescence that increase health capital-measured as adult height-may promote social mobility in Mexico and similar countries to the extent that these investments differentially increase health capital among the poor.

Twitter social mobility data reveal demographic variations in social distancing practices during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the importance of social distancing practices to stem the spread of the virus. However, compliance with public health guidelines was mixed. Understanding what factors are associated with differences in compliance can improve public health messaging since messages could be targeted and tailored to different population segments. We utilize Twitter data on social mobility during COVID-19 to reveal which populations practiced social distancing and what factors correlated with this practice. We analyze correlations between demographic and political affiliation with reductions in physical mobility measured by public geolocation tweets. We find significant differences in mobility reduction between these groups in the United States. We observe that males, Asian and Latinx individuals, older individuals, Democrats, and people from higher population density states exhibited larger reductions in movement. Furthermore, our study also unveils meaningful insights into the interactions between different groups. We hope these findings will provide evidence to support public health policy-making.

Individual values predict desiring more economic inequality: The moderator role of social mobility.

Attitudes towards economic inequality are crucial to uphold structural economic inequality in democratic societies. Previous research has shown that socioeconomic status, political ideology, and the objective level of economic inequality associated with individuals' attitudes towards economic inequality. However, some have suggested that people are aware of the individual and social features that are more functional according to the level of economic inequality. Therefore, individual predispositions such as cultural values could also predict these attitudes. In the current research, we expand previous results testing whether cultural variables at the individual level predict attitudes towards economic inequality. After analysing survey data including samples from 52 countries (N = 89,565), we found that self-enhancement values predict positively, and self-transcendence negatively, attitudes towards economic inequality as the ideal economic inequality measures. This result remained significant even after controlling by socioeconomic status, political ideology, and objective economic inequality. However, this effect is only true in high and middle social mobility countries, but not in countries with low social mobility. The present research highlights how cultural values and country social mobility are crucial factors to addressing attitudes towards economic inequality.

Social mobility in the Tang Dynasty as the Imperial Examination rose and aristocratic family pedigree declined, 618-907 CE.

Data from the distant past are fertile ground for testing social science theories of education and social mobility. In this study, we construct a dataset from 3,640 tomb epitaphs of males in China's Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE), which contain granular and extensive information about the ancestral origins, family background, and career histories of the deceased elites. Our statistical analysis of the complete profiles yields evidence of the transition away from an aristocratic society in three key trends: 1) family pedigree (i.e., aristocracy) mattered less for career achievement over time, 2) passing the Imperial Examination (Keju) became an increasingly important predictor of one's career achievement, and 3) father's position always mattered throughout the Tang, especially for men who did not pass the Keju. The twilight of medieval Chinese aristocracy, according to the data, began in as early as the mid-seventh century CE.

The heterogeneous well-being effects of intergenerational mobility perceptions.

Individuals make comparisons with their parents which determine their intergenerational mobility perceptions, yet very little is known about the areas used for intergenerational comparison and whether these matter for individuals' well-being. In 2021 we commissioned a nationally representative survey in Georgia in which we explicitly asked 1159 individuals an open-ended question on the most important areas in their intergenerational comparisons. More than 170 types of answers were provided by respondents and many of these responses went beyond the standard indicators of intergenerational mobility. We show that the areas of intergenerational comparison significantly differ between those who perceive themselves as being downwardly and upwardly mobile or immobile using the measure of mobility previously validated in cross-national research. Using, among other statistical approaches, treatment effects estimators, we demonstrate that some areas of intergenerational comparison, particularly in terms of income attainment, are significantly and consistently associated with internationally validated measures of well-being.

Social mobility and mental health: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Socioeconomic status (SES) is a robust correlate of mental health, and emerging research indicates that life course trajectories of SES (i.e., social mobility) may be more predictive for health outcomes than point-in-time SES assessments. This paper presents five primary meta-analyses to determine how mental health differs between social mobility groups. We conducted a systematic review of PsycINFO, Web of Science, and PubMed for studies of social mobility and mental health. We used random-effects multilevel meta-analyses to compare mental health problems between individuals who experienced upward mobility, downward mobility, stable high SES, and stable low SES. We included data from 21 studies and 157,763 unique participants yielding 105 effect sizes. Upwardly mobile participants experienced more mental health problems than stable high SES participants (d = 0.11), fewer mental health problems than stable low SES participants (d = -0.24), and fewer mental health problems than downwardly mobile participants (d = -0.17). Downwardly mobile individuals experienced more mental health problems than stable high SES participants (d = 0.26) and fewer mental health problems than stable low SES participants (d = -0.10). Subgroup analyses revealed that the magnitude of effects did not differ by continent of study, type of generational mobility (intergenerational vs. intragenerational), or SES indicator. Meta-regressions with continuous moderators (age, gender, race, study quality) were also non-significant. Taken together, these results indicate that both upwardly and downwardly mobile individuals experience more mental health problems than those who are persistently advantaged, and they both experience fewer mental health problems than those who are persistently disadvantaged. Our findings suggest that while current SES has a stronger association with adult mental health than childhood SES, it is important to also consider the impact of early life and prior generation SES to account for lingering effects of early disadvantage.

Social Mobility and Cognitive Impairment Among Korean Older Adults: Does Gender Matter?

The purpose of this study is to investigate the association between social mobility and cognitive impairment among older adults in Korea. The study sample is drawn from nationally representative data, which comes from the 2016 Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing (KLoSA). The final sample consists of 4264 KLoSA respondents aged 65 or older. Gender-specific logistic regression models are used to examine the association between social mobility and cognitive impairment. The results show that, when compared to the reference group (stable low social mobility), women in the downward and the stable high social mobility groups were less likely to have cognitive impairment. In contrast, upward social mobility was a protective factor for cognitive impairment only among men. Gender-specific interventions may be needed to enhance cognitive health among older Koreans. Further research is needed to examine the causal relations between social mobility and cognitive health between the genders.

Early-life impairments, chronic health conditions, and income mobility.

Individuals who have congenital conditions or become disabled early in life tend to have poorer educational and occupational outcomes than non-disabled individuals. Disability is known to be a complex entity with multiple causations, involving, inter alia, physiological, social, economic, and cultural factors. It is established that social factors can influence educational and occupational attainment for disabled people, and current disability policy in many countries, particularly in the Global North, stress the importance of equality of opportunity. However, there is a scarcity of research that explores the specific degrees to which advanced welfare states contribute to the equalization of life chances for individuals with early-life impairments and chronic health conditions. In this study, we use a Norwegian sample of high-quality register data on individuals with vision loss, hearing loss, physical impairment, type 1 diabetes, asthma, and Down syndrome diagnosed early in life and compare their intergenerational income mobility trajectories with a random sample drawn from the country's entire population. We find that individuals' early-life diagnoses are linked to significantly worse income outcomes in adulthood than what is observed among the general population. We conclude that even in one of the most advanced egalitarian welfare states, such as Norway, much remains to be done to equalize life chances for individuals with early-life impairments and chronic health conditions.

Social mobility and mental health in Canada.

OBJECTIVES: To investigate whether intergenerational mobility in education and income are associated with levels of psychological distress in Canada, a context in which rates of intergenerational mobility are higher than those of the United States but lower than those of Nordic countries. METHODS: The data came from the Longitudinal and International Study of Adults (LISA) linked to tax records from the Canada Revenue Agency (N = 4100). Diagonal reference models were used to investigate whether educational mobility and income mobility were associated with levels of psychological distress in adulthood as assessed by the Kessler (K-10) scale. The models controlled for sociodemographic characteristics and were stratified by gender. RESULTS: Although we did not find that mobility in general was associated with greater levels of psychological distress, we found that downward educational mobility in particular corresponded to higher levels of psychological distress (b = 0.15 with 95% CI = 0.00, 0.31) among men. CONCLUSION: Overall, we found no strong evidence that social mobility in general is impactful for levels of psychological distress, but downward educational mobility in particular may have negative consequences for the mental health of men. In addition, a notable gradient between income and psychological distress in adulthood was observed for both women and men.

RéSUMé: OBJECTIFS: Étudier dans quelle(s) mesure(s) la mobilité intergénérationnelle en matière d'éducation et de revenu est associée aux niveaux de détresse psychologique au Canada, dans un contexte où les taux de mobilité intergénérationnelle sont plus élevés qu'aux États-Unis, mais plus faibles que dans les pays nordiques. MéTHODES: Les données proviennent de l'Étude longitudinale et internationale des adultes (ELIA) reliée aux dossiers fiscaux de l'Agence du revenu du Canada (N = 4 100). Des modèles de référence diagonaux ont été utilisés pour déterminer si la mobilité éducationnelle et la mobilité des revenus étaient associées aux niveaux de détresse psychologique à l'âge adulte, tels qu'évalués par l'échelle de Kessler (K-10). Les modèles ont tenu compte des caractéristiques sociodémographiques et ont été stratifiés en fonction du genre. RéSULTATS: Bien que nous n'ayons pas trouvé que la mobilité en général était associée à des niveaux plus élevés de détresse psychologique, nous avons trouvé que la mobilité éducationnelle descendante correspondait à des niveaux plus élevés de détresse psychologique (b = 0,15 avec IC 95% = 0,00, 0,31) chez les hommes. CONCLUSION: Dans l'ensemble, nous n'avons pas trouvé de preuves solides que la mobilité sociale en général a un impact sur les niveaux de détresse psychologique, mais la mobilité éducationnelle descendante en particulier peut avoir des conséquences négatives sur la santé mentale des hommes. En outre, un gradient notable entre le revenu et la détresse psychologique à l'âge adulte a été observé tant chez les femmes que chez les hommes.

Women's Social Mobility and Attitudinal Acceptance of Wife Abuse: A Cross-Sectional Study Among Bengali, Santal, and Garo Ethnic Communities in Rural Bangladesh.

Previous studies exploring the influential factors associated with attitudinal acceptance of wife abuse (AAWA) did not widely focus on the relation between women's social mobility (WSM) and different dimensions of AAWA in rural Bangladesh. This current study examined the association between WSM and different dimensions of AAWA in the context of socio-cultural differences among the Bengali, the Santal, and the Garo ethnic communities in rural Bangladesh. Adopting a cross-sectional design, 1,929 married men and women were randomly included in the study from 8 Bengali, 8 Santal, and 8 Garo villages where 50.2% were women and 49.8% were men. Of the sample, 33.2% Garo, 33.2% Santal, and 33.6% Bengali participants were included in this study. Data revealed that 45.5% of women had low social mobility and the prevalence of different dimensions of AAWA was high and varied among the study communities. We used descriptive statistics, chi-square, and binary logistic regression analysis to estimate the association. The multivariate binary logistic regression analysis results revealed that the likelihood of attitudinal acceptance of overall abuse, psychological abuse, physical abuse, abuse on disobeying family obligation, and abuse on challenging male authority were significantly lower for the respondents who belonged to families where women enjoyed high mobility compared to those who belonged to families where WSM was low. This study also showed that the Bengali and the Santal participants were more likely to accept different dimensions of AAWA compared to the Garos. This study suggests that WSM should be considered in policy-making and implementing interventions to reduce the different dimensions of AAWA in rural Bangladesh.

Childhood circumstances, social mobility and the obesity transition: Evidence from South Africa.

The distribution of obesity tends to shift from rich to poor individuals as countries develop, in a process of shifting sociodemographic patterns of obesity that has been called the 'obesity transition'. This change tends to happen with economic development, but little is known about the specific mechanisms that drive the change. We propose that improvements in childhood circumstances with economic development may be one of the drivers of the obesity transition. We explore whether the social gradient in body weight differs by childhood socioeconomic status (SES), proxied by the respondent's mother having Grade 12, using South Africa's nationally representative panel National Income Dynamics Study. In support of our hypothesis, we find that the social gradient in body weight is less positive for adults who had a high childhood SES, and already appears to have reversed among high-SES women who also had a high childhood SES. Upward social mobility over an individual's life course or across a single generation is associated with higher body weight compared to a stable high SES. But a high SES sustained in childhood and adulthood - or across more than one generation - may decrease adult obesity risk, and result in a reversal of the social gradient in body weight. Random effects within-between models show that the social gradient in body weight and its interaction with childhood SES are driven more by differences in income between individuals than by short-run changes in income within individuals, again suggesting that the obesity transition is driven by long-run changes rather than by very short-run changes. Our results are broadly robust to using several alternative measures of body weight, childhood SES and adult SES. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that widespread improvements in childhood circumstances and nutrition with economic development may contribute to the shift to later stages of the obesity transition.

The intragenerational mobility of the top income earners during financial crises, a story of a cohort.

In this study, we explore the dynamics of the intragenerational mobility of the top income earners during financial crises. We analyze panel data on the income levels of a cohort consisting of 22,601 individuals in Israel born between 1963 and 1973, for the period between 1995 and 2013. Studying a specific cohort allows us to focus on the changes caused by period effects, rather than cohort replacement distortions. We use common intragenerational mobility measurements before, during, and after two major recessions- the Dot.com crisis and the Global Financial Crisis of 2008- which occurred during the analyzed period. However, since these are usually descriptive, we adopt a methodology that enables us to calculate confidence intervals of these measurements and thus test for changes over time. Our results show if the two crises had any effect on the intragenerational mobility of the top income earners of the analyzed cohort, it was a minor and transitory effect.

Socioeconomic position and executive functioning from childhood to young adulthood: Evidence from Santiago, Chile.

BACKGROUND: Optimizing cognitive development through early adulthood has implications for population health. This study aims to understand how socioeconomic position (SEP) across development relates to executive functioning. We evaluate three frameworks in life-course epidemiology - the sensitive period, accumulation, and social mobility hypotheses. METHODS: Participants were young adults from Santiago, Chile who were studied from 6 months to 21 years. Family SEP was measured at ages 1 y, 10 y, and 16 y with the modified Graffar Index. Executive functioning was assessed at ages 16 y and 21 y by the Trail Making Test Part B (Trails B). Analyses estimating 16 y and 21 y executive function involved 581 and 469 participants, respectively. Trails B scores were modeled as a function of SEP at 1 y, 10 y, and 16 y, as the total accumulation of disadvantage, and as change in SEP between 1 y and 10 y and between 10 y and 16 y. RESULTS: Participants were low- to middle-income in infancy and, on average, experienced upwards mobility across childhood. Half of participants (58%) improved Trails B scores from 16 y and 21 y. Most (68%) experienced upward social mobility between infancy and 16 y. When examined independently, worse SEP measured at 10 y and 16 y related to worse (longer time to complete) Trails B scores at Age 21 but did not relate to the other outcomes. After mutual adjustment as a test of the sensitivity hypothesis, no SEP measure was independently related to any outcome. Testing the accumulation hypothesis, cumulative low SEP was associated with worse cognitive performance at 21 y (ß = 3.6, p = 0.04). Results for the social mobility hypothesis showed no relation to cognitive scores or to change in cognitive scores. Comparing all hypotheses, SEP at 16 y explained the most variability in executive functioning at 21 y, providing support for the sensitive period hypothesis. CONCLUSIONS: Results indicate that experiencing cumulatively low socioeconomic position from infancy to adolescence can have a negative impact on cognitive functioning in young adulthood. Findings also provide evidence in support of adolescence as a key developmental period during which SEP can most strongly impact cognitive functioning.

Rising and falling on the social ladder: The bidimensional social mobility beliefs scale.

Recent works in the field of Social Psychology have shown the importance of studying subjective social mobility from different perspectives. In the literature about subjective societal mobility, most of the research is focused on the mobility-immobility framing. However, several authors suggested studying social mobility beliefs effects differentiating according to mobility's trajectory, that is, upward (i.e., improving status over time) and downward (i.e., getting worse in status over time). The present research was motivated by the lack of measures that discriminate between beliefs in upward and downward societal mobility. Across two studies using different samples of the Spanish adult population, we examined both dimensions of social mobility beliefs and tested their predictive validity on other related constructs. In Study 1 (N = 164), with an EFA, we corroborated the independence between the two types of mobility. The internal structure was confirmed by a CFA in Study 2 (N = 400). Furthermore, it was shown that upward and downward mobility beliefs are differently related to other related constructs. The results from Studies 1-2 showed good convergent validity. In all correlations with the different constructs (attitudes towards inequality, meritocratic beliefs, justification of the economic system, and status anxiety) we found opposite direction effects for both types of societal mobility (upward and downward). The development of this new instrument can help to deepen our understanding of the psychosocial consequences of subjective social mobility, as well as to differentiate two processes that may have different consequences.

Trajectories in physical functioning at older age in relation to childhood and adulthood SES and social mobility: a population-based cohort study.

Introduction: Older age is associated with the deterioration of physical functioning (PF), and low PF is strongly related to poor quality of life among older people. We conducted a study to examine the trajectories of PF between middle and old age, considering sex differences as well as the association between socioeconomic status (SES) at different life stages and changes in PF. Methods: We analyzed data from the Polish arm of the HAPIEE (Health, Alcohol and Psychosocial factors In Eastern Europe) study, including 1,116 men and 1,178 women aged 45-64 years at baseline. Adult and childhood SES and social mobility were assessed using a retrospectively focused questionnaire. PF was assessed using the 10-question SF-36 scale at baseline examination, face-to-face re-examination, and three postal surveys, covering up to 20 years (on average, 18 years). We employed Generalized Estimating Equations models to assess changes in PF scores over time and compare PF trajectories across different SES categories. Results: After adjusting for age and other covariates, we found that, in both sexes, participants with always middle or high SES, as well as those who reported upward mobility, had higher PF scores at baseline compared to those with always low SES. A decline in PF between middle and old age was observed in all SES groups; however, the decline was slower in participants with always middle or high SES compared to those with always low SES. Conclusion: This cohort study revealed that lower SES and downward social mobility were cross-sectionally associated with poorer PF, while upward social mobility seemed to largely reverse the effect of low childhood SES. In addition to the cross-sectional associations observed at baseline, advantaged SES was also significantly associated with a slower decline in PF over an 18-year follow-up period.

Intergenerational mobility through inhabited meritocracy: Evidence from civil service examinations of the early- and mid-Ming dynasty.

The civil service examination system emerged to strengthen the emperor's power by recruiting political elites through open examinations. Did it, during the early- and mid-Ming dynasty, facilitate intergenerational mobility? Rather than oversimplifying it as a single-stage system of meritocracy, we propose a two-stage evaluation framework. In the first stage, the Metropolitan Exam featured merit-based evaluations and generated credentials necessary for becoming political elites. The subsequent non-eliminating Palace Exam then functioned to assess the students' organizational fit in line with an emperor's political calculations. In particular, those whose families served in the bureaucracy were favored, while those from affluent families were discriminated against. We test this two-stage framework using the records of 12,427 students who passed 46 exams between 1400 and 1580, a period characterizing the heyday of this system. Our empirical findings from the mixed-effect regression models confirm this argument and suggest promising directions for future research.

Le système d'examen de la fonction publique est apparu pour renforcer le pouvoir de l'empereur en recrutant des élites politiques par le biais d'examens ouverts. A-t-il, au début et au milieu de la dynastie Ming, facilité la mobilité intergénérationnelle ? Plutôt que de le simplifier à l'extrême comme un système de méritocratie à une seule étape, nous proposons un cadre d'évaluation en deux étapes. Au premier stade, l'examen métropolitain comportait une évaluation fondée sur le mérite et permettait d'obtenir les qualifications nécessaires pour devenir des élites politiques. L'examen du palais, non éliminatoire, permettait ensuite d'évaluer l'aptitude organisationnelle des étudiants en fonction des calculs politiques de l'empereur. En particulier, ceux dont les familles travaillaient dans la bureaucratie étaient favorisés, tandis que ceux issus de familles aisées étaient discriminés. Nous testons ce cadre en deux étapes en utilisant les dossiers de 12 427 étudiants qui ont passé 46 examens entre 1400 et 1580, une période qui caractérise l'apogée de ce système. Les résultats empiriques de nos modèles de régression à effets mixtes confirment cet argument et suggèrent des directions prometteuses pour la recherche future.

Social class, intergenerational mobility, and desired number of children in China.

With more countries entering an era of low fertility, factors that may shape individuals' childbearing desires have been extensively explored. One's intergenerational social mobility experience, however, remains under-discussed. This paper examines this issue against the backdrop of China, in which the total fertility rate has rapidly declined to the lowest-low level in recent decades. Using pooled five-wave data from the Chinese General Social Survey from 2010 to 2017, we found a checkmark-shaped relationship between social class and fertility desire. Chinese farmers have the greatest desired number of children, manual workers have the lowest, and the two upper classes lie in the middle. In general, one's origin class and destination class play a similar role in shaping fertility desire, demonstrating the coexistence of socialization and acculturation processes. The gender-specific examination further suggests that, compared to women, men are more reluctant to change the fertility attitude learned from the origin class. Based on these findings, our study proposes a novel explanation of the decline in fertility desire in China and contributes to the literature on how social mobility experiences and gender ideology jointly construct fertility desire.