Perceived Socioeconomic Status and Health: A Longitudinal Biomarker Approach

People who say that they are better off socioeconomically are healthier than those who say that they are worse off, even when only comparing people whose objective socioeconomic status is the same. This association between perceived socioeconomic status and health has intrigued social scientists for various reasons. Some suggest that the finding shows that it is feelings of inferiority by which social conditions "come under the skin." Others suggest that it shows how our objective measures of  socioeconomic status fail to capture stratification in contemporary societies. In our study, we take a step back to re-examine the perceived socioeconomic status-health association in the English Longitudinal Study of Aging (ELSA). Using hybrid, within-between panel regression models and allostatic load as biomarker health outcome, we show that perceived socioeconomic status is only associated with health in comparisons across individuals, in within-specifications where participants serve as their own controls, no association can be found. In a further step, we show how the between-participant association is driven by personality traits and childhood experiences. We discuss the implications of our findings. This is joint work with Lindsay Richards, University of Oxford, and Asri Maharani, University of Manchester.

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