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Socioeconomic status

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Practically all indicators of physical health and mental competence favour people of higher socioeconomic status (SES). Social class attainment is important because it can predict health across the lifespan, where people from lower social class have higher morbidity and mortality[1]. SES and health outcomes are general across time, place, disease, and are finely graded up the SES continuum. Gottfredson[2] argues that general intelligence (g) is the fundamental cause for health inequality. The argument is that g is the fundamental cause of social class inequality in health, because it meets six criteria that every candidate for the cause must meet: stable distribution over time, is replicable, is a transportable form of influence, has a general effect on health, is measurable, and is falsifiable.

Stability: Any casual agent has to be persistent and stable across time for its pattern of effects to be general over ages and decades[2]. Large and stable individual differences in g are developed by adolescence and the dispersion of g in population’s intelligence present in every generation, no matter what social circumstances are present. Therefore, equalizing socioeconomic environments does very little to reduce the dispersion in IQ[3]. The dispersion of IQ in a society in general is more stable, than its dispersion of socioeconomic status[2].

Replicability: Siblings who vary in IQ also vary in socioeconomic success which can be comparable with strangers of comparable IQ[4]. Also, g theory[2] predicts that if genetic g is the principal mechanism carrying socioeconomic inequality between generations, then the maximum correlation between the parent and child SES will be near to their genetic correlation for IQ (.50).

Transportability: The performance [5] and functional literacy [6] studies both illustrated how g is transportable across life situations and it represents a set of largely generalizable reasoning and problem-solving skills. G appear to be linearly linked to performance in school, jobs and achievements.

Generality: Studies [7] show that IQ measured at the age of 11 predicted longevity, premature death, lung and stomach cancers, dementia, loss of functional independence, more than 60 years later. Research has shown that higher IQ at age 11 is significantly related to higher social class in midlife[8]. Therefore it is safe to assume that higher SES, as well as higher IQ, generally predicts better health.

Measurability: g factor can be extracted from any broad set of mental tests and has provided a common, reliable source for measuring general intelligence in any population[2].

Falsifiability: theoretically, if g theory[2] would conceive health self-care as a job, as a set of instrumental tasks performed by the individuals, it could predict g to influence the health performance in the same way as it predicts performance in education and job.

Chronic illnesses are the major illnesses in developed countries today, and their major risk factors are health habits and lifestyle[2]. The higher social strata knows the most and the lower social strata knows the least, whether class is assessed by education, occupation or income and even when the information seems to be most useful for the poorest. Higher g promotes more learning, and it increases exposure to learning opportunities. So, the problem is not in the lack of access to health-care, but the patient’s failure to use it effectively when delivered. Low literacy [9] has been associated with low use of preventive care, poor comprehension of one’s illness – even when care is free. Health self-management is important because literacy provides the ability to acquire new information and complete complex tasks and that limited problem solving abilities make low-literacy patients less likely to change their behaviour on the basis of new information[2].Chronic lack of good judgement and effective reasoning leads to chronically poor self-management.

g mediates the relationship between health knowledge and SES, and considering health literacy, which reflects mostly g, predicts health knowledge, health behaviour and health in general, it is safe to conclude that general intelligence (g) is, indeed, the fundamental cause of social class inequalities in health.

Influence of intelligence on social mobility

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Social status attainment and therefore social mobility in adulthood are of interest to psychologists, sociologists, political scientists, economists, epidemiologists and many more. The reason behind the interest is because it indicates access to material goods, educational opportunities, healthy environments, and nonetheless the economic growth. It is important to study childhood ability, childhood social background, and education because they are important determinants to adult social status [8][7][10][11][12][13]

Deary and colleagues [8] did a study that encompassed a wide range of data of individuals in lifetime (in childhood and during mid-adulthood). Most of the Scottish children which were born in 1921 participated in the Scottish Mental Survey 1932, which was conducted under the auspices of the Scottish Council for Research in Education (SCRE)[14] and obtained the data of psychometric intelligence of Scottish pupils [7]. The number of children who took the mental ability test (based on the Moray House tests) was 87,498. They were between age 10 and 11. The tests covered general, spatial and numerical reasoning.

At mid-life period, a subset of the subjects participated in one of the Midspan studies, which were large health studies of adults and were carried out in Scotland in the 1960s and 1970s[8]. The particular Midspan study they took part in was the Collaborative study of 6022 men and 1006 women, conducted between 1970 and 1973 in Scotland. Participants completed a questionnaire (participant’s address, father’s occupation, the participant’s own first regular occupation, the age of finishing full time education, number of siblings, and if the participant was a regular car driver) and attended a physical examination (measurement of height). Social class was coded according to the Registrar General’s Classification[15] for the participant’s occupation at the time of screening, his first occupation and his father’s occupation. Six social classes were used (I – professional to V – lowest, manual work). Women were excluded from the data set due to the unrepresentativeness of the social spectrum.

A correlation and structural equation model analysis was conducted [8]. In the structural equation models, social status in the 1970s was the main outcome variable. The main contributors to education (and first social class) were father’s social class and IQ at age 11, which was also found in a Scandinavian study[16]. This effect was direct and also mediated via education and the participant’s first job[8].

Participants at midlife did not necessarily ended up in the same social class as their fathers [8]. There was social mobility in the sample: 45% of men were upwardly mobile, 14% were downwardly mobile and 41% were socially stable. IQ at age 11 had a graded relationship with participant’s social class. Same effect was seen for father’s occupation. Men at midlife social class I and II (the highest, more professional) also had the highest IQ at age 11. Height at midlife, years of education and childhood IQ were significantly positively related to upward social mobility, while number of siblings had no significant effect. For each standard deviation increase in IQ score at the age 11, the chances of upward social mobility increases by 69% (with a 95% confidence). After controlling the effect of independent variables, only IQ at age 11 was significantly inversely related to the downward in social mobility. Which means that more years of education help a man to surpass his father’s social class, and that low IQ makes a man prone to fail behind his father’s social class.

Structural equation model of the direct and indirect influence of childhood position and IQ upon social status attainment at mid-life.All parameters significant (p<.05)[8]

Higher IQ at age 11 was also significantly related to higher social class at midlife, higher likehood car driving at midlife, higher first social class, higher father’s social class, fewer siblings, higher age of education, being taller and living in a less deprived neighbourhood at midlife[8]. IQ was significantly more strongly related to the social class in midlife than the social class of the first job.

Finally, height, education and IQ at age 11 were predictors of upward social mobility and only IQ at age 11 and height were significant predictors of downward social mobility [8]. Number of siblings was not significant in neither of the models.

Another research [10] looked into the pivotal role of education in association between ability and social class attainment through three generations (fathers, participants and offspring) using the SMS1932 [7](Lothian Birth Cohort 1921) educational data, childhood ability and late life intellectual function data. It was proposed that social class of origin acts as a ballast [10] restraining otherwise meritocratic social class movement, and that education is the primary means through which social class movement is both restrained and facilitated – therefore acting in a pivotal role.

It was found [10] that social class of origin predicts educational attainment in both the participant’s and offspring generations. Father’s social class and participant’s social class held the same importance in predicting offspring educational attainment – effect across two generations. Educational attainment mediated the association of social class attainments across generations (father’s and participants social class, participant’s and offspring’s social class). There was no direct link social classes across generations, but in each generation educational attainment was a predictor of social class, which is consistent with other studies [17][18]. Also, participant’s childhood ability moderately predicted their educational and social class attainment (.31 and .38). Participant’s educational attainment was strongly linked with the odds of moving downward or upward on the social class ladder. For each SD increase in education, the odds of moving upward on the social class spectrum were 2.58 times greater (the downward ones were .26 times greater). Offspring’s educational attainment was also strongly linked with the odds of moving upward or downward on the social class ladder. For each SD increase in education, the odds of moving upward were 3.54 times greater (the downward ones were .40 times greater). In conclusion, education is very important, because it is the fundamental mechanism functioning both to hold individuals in their social class of origin and to make it possible for their movement upward or downward on the social class ladder [10].

In the Cohort 1936 it was found that regarding whole generations (not individuals) [11] the social mobility between father’s and participant’s generation is: 50.7% of the participant generation have moved upward in relation to their fathers, 22.1% had moved downwards, and 27.2% had remained stable in their social class. There was a lack of social mobility in the offspring generation as a whole. However, there was definitely individual offspring movement on the social class ladder: 31.4% had higher social class attainment than their participant parents (grandparents), 33.7% moved downward, and 33.9% stayed stable. Participant’s childhood mental ability was linked to social class in all three generations. A very important pattern has also been confirmed: average years of education increased with social class and IQ.

There were some great contributors to social class attainment and social class mobility in the twentieth century: Both social class attainment and social mobility are influenced by pre-existing levels of mental ability[11], which was in consistence with other studies [17] [19][20][21]. So, the role of individual level mental ability in pursuit of educational attainment – professional positions require specific educational credentials. Furthermore, educational attainment contributes to social class attainment through the contribution of mental ability to educational attainment. Even further, mental ability can contribute to social class attainment independent of actual educational attainment, as in when the educational attainment is prevented, individuals with higher mental ability manage to make use of the mental ability to work their way up on the social ladder. This study made clear that intergenerational transmission of educational attainment is one of the key ways in which social class was maintained within family, and there was also evidence that education attainment was increasing over time. Finally, the results suggest that social mobility (moving upward and downward) has increased in recent years in Britain. Which according to Burt[21] is important because an overall mobility of about 22% is needed to keep the distribution of intelligence relatively constant from one generation to the other within each occupational category.

  1. ^ Adler, N. E., Boyce, T., Chesney, M. A., Cohen, S., Folkman, S., Kahn, R. L., & Syme, S. L. (1994). Socioeconomic Status and Health: The Challenge of the Gradient. American Psychologist, 15–24.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Gottfredson, L. S. (2004). Intelligence: Is it the Epidemiologists' Elusive "Fundamental Cause" of Social Class Inequalities in Health? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 174-199.
  3. ^ Firkowska, A., Ostrowska, A., Sokolowska, M., Stein, Z., Susser, M., & Wald, I. (1978). Cognitive development and social policy. Science, 1357–1362.
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  6. ^ Baldwin, J., Kirsch, I. S., Rock, D., & Yamamoto, K. (1995). The literacy proficiencies of GED examinees: Results from the GED-NALS comparison study. Washington, DC: GED Testing Service of the American Council on Education and Educational Testing Service.
  7. ^ a b c d Deary, I. J., Whiteman, M. C., Starr, J. M., Whalley, L. J., & Fox, H. C. (2004). The Impact of Childhood Intelligence on Later Life: Following Up the Scottish Mental Surveys of 1932 and 1947. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 130–147.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Deary, I. J., Taylor, M. D., Hart, C. L., Wilson, V., Smith, G. D., Blane, D., & Starr, J. M. (2005). Intergenerational social mobility and mid-life status attainment: Influences of childhood intelligence, childhood social factors, and education. Intelligence, 455–472.
  9. ^ Davis, T. C., Meldrum, H., Tippy, P. K. P., Weiss, B. D., & Williams, M. V. (1996). How poor literacy leads to poor health care. Patient care, 94-104.
  10. ^ a b c d e Johnson, W., Brett, C. E., & Deary, I. J. (2010a). The pivotal role of education in the association between ability and social class attainment: A look across three generations. Intelligence, 55-65.
  11. ^ a b c Johnson, W., Brett, C. E., & Deary, I. J. (2010b). Intergenerational class mobility in Britain: A comparative look across three generations in the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936. Intelligence, 268–281.
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  13. ^ von Stumm, S., Gale, C. R., Batty, G. D., & Deary, I. J. (2009). Childhood intelligence, locus of control and behaviour disturbance as determinants of intergenerational social mobility: British Cohort Study 1970. Intelligence, 37(4), 329-340.
  14. ^ Scottish Council for Research in Education (1933). The intelligence of Scottish children: A national survey of an age-group. London, UK7 University of London Press.
  15. ^ General Register Office (1966). Classification of occupations 1966. London, UK7 HMSO.
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  18. ^ Forrest, L. F., Hodgson, S., Parker, L., & Pearce, M. S. (2011). The influence of childhood IQ and education on social mobility in the Newcastle Thousand Families birth cohort. BMC Public Health, 11(1), 895.
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  20. ^ Young, M., & Gibson, J. (1963). In search of an explanation of social mobility. The British Journal of Statistical Psychology, 27-36.
  21. ^ a b Burt, C. (1961). Intelligence and social mobility. The British Journal of Statistical Psychology, 1−24
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