Abstract
After 40 years of reform and opening up, China’s social and economic conditions have undergone tremendous changes. For individuals who have experienced this historical period, the socioeconomic transition has brought different effects on their health status. This research examines the issue and provides evidence that government policies need to be improved. This study adopted data from the 2015 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS). We set the education level, occupation, and family income during old age as the socioeconomic status for the early, middle, and late stages of life. Based on specific criteria, we classified the population as disadvantaged and advantaged, considering eight changing trajectories of socioeconomic status. We used multiple regression analysis to examine how the eight trajectories affect individuals’ physical and mental health. After controlling for social demography and health behavior variables, we found that, compared with those in the advantaged group long term, people who were in the disadvantaged group suffered from a significantly negative impact of their socioeconomic status on physical and mental health. The health status of those who moved upward in socioeconomic status was substantially better than those who remained in the same status. This study confirms that early disadvantaged socioeconomic status has a long-term adverse effect on health. However, the negative impact can be mitigated by improving one’s occupation during middle age or family income during old age throughout China’s socioeconomic transitions. Therefore, increasing upward social mobility at any stage helps eliminate health inequalities.
Highlights
After 40 years of reform and opening-up, China's social and economic conditions have undergone tremendous changes
After controlling for social demography and health behavior variables, we found that compared with those in the advantaged group long term, people who were in the disadvantaged group suffered from a significantly negative impact of their socioeconomic status on physical and mental health
The results show that socioeconomic status can significantly affect self-rated health and mental health
Summary
After 40 years of reform and opening-up, China's social and economic conditions have undergone tremendous changes. We analyzed the individual socioeconomic factors associated with health inequalities, explored their roles of eliminating health inequalities during the transition, and provided evidence to that government policies need to be improved. Research that applied the life course approach to study the health effects of social factors indicated that the determinant of disease or health lied in the early stage of life [5] [6]. Previous studies of the life course approach focused on the relationship between socioeconomic status and health status or mortality during embryonic, childhood, adolescent and adolescent periods These studies explored the impact of changes in socioeconomic status on health and death in later years through three factors: critical period, accumulation of risk, and social mobility [8][9]
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