Does class matter? SES and psychosocial health among Hungarian adolescents

Abstract

Previous research finds a significant relationship between socioeconomic inequalities and health status; individuals with lower income, education, and occupational prestige have and report more health problems. Interestingly, this relationship is not consistent across the life cycle; health differences among adolescents across socioeconomic groups are not as clearly defined. Using data ( n=1039) on adolescents from southern Hungary, we examine the role of socioeconomic differences in predicting psychosocial health. We argue that this investigation is of particular importance in a post-communist system where the general perception of SES is undergoing significant transformation. Findings show that ‘classical’ SES (socioeconomic status) indicators (manual/nonmanual occupational status) were not significant predictors of psychosocial health in this sample of Hungarian adolescents. While parents’ employment status as a ‘objective’ SES indicator had limited effect, SES self-assessment, as a subjective SES variable, proved to be a strong predictor of adolescents’ psychosocial health. We discuss the implications of these findings for the broader SES–health literature with specific attention paid to the impact these relationships may have for adolescent and young adult development in a post-communist country like Hungary.