Socio-occupational Groups Research Articles

Aspiration and Capability to Aspire: How Do French Institutions Affect Socio-Occupational Groups?

ABSTRACT How do workers in low-skilled jobs picture their futures? How are aspirations for career reorientation activated? What influence do institutions have on the objectives that individuals pursue? How do various socio-occupational groups approach and manage their future? What are the major differences between skilled and low-skilled workers? These are some of the questions raised after a series of reforms passed in France that aim to make all individuals the genuine agents of their professional lives and pathways rather than being the passive focus of training programmes and employability initiatives. This paper seeks to investigate these issues. Based on Sen's capability approach and the French linked and longitudinal Defis surveys, we contend that French low-skilled workers are more likely to aspire to career reorientation but have less capability to aspire.

Contribution of Occupational Risk Factors to Lifespan Inequalities across Socio-Occupational Groups in France

Background and aim: Occupational risk factors can mediate the effect of socioeconomic status on mortality; however, the reduction in social disparities in mortality that could be achieved by modifying employment and working conditions has been under-studied. Our aim was to quantify the role of occupational risk factors (lack of job control, job insecurity, and unemployment; and in men only: occupational physical activity (OPA)) in producing socio-occupational inequalities in lifespan among the French population. Methods: We reviewed the literature on 75 occupational risk factors and selected four of them with a robust all-cause mortality effect size. We used the Health and Career Path survey (SIP-2006) to estimate differential exposures in each French socio-occupational group (SOG) by sex. Then, using the life tables published by The French Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies and developing a method based on population attributable fractions, we estimated loss in life expectancy attributed to workplace exposures by SOG and sex. Results: Based on life expectancy estimated at age 35 and depending on SOG, from one to three years of life lost for men, and from 0.6 to two years for women are attributed to a combination of high OPA, low job control, job insecurity, and unemployment compared to those who had low OPA, high job control, no concerns about job loss and were employed. The difference in life expectancy at age 35 between senior executives and manual workers would have been reduced from 6.3 to 4.4 years for men and from 3.2 to 2.2 years for women if socio-occupational exposures had been set at the theoretical minimum level for the four risk factors. Conclusions: Our results, although based on a limited number of workplace factors due to large data gaps, show that improving employment and working conditions would substantially lessen social inequalities in life expectancies.

The bias in estimating accessibility inequalities using gravity-based metrics

Accessibility measures have been extensively used to explore the outcomes of the spatial distribution of transport, jobs, and population groups in cities. Despite its wide use, identifying the population groups that most benefit from accessibility is not straightforward and different metrics might result in different conclusions. The present work aims to analyze the potential bias of using gravity-based measures based on revealed mobilities to identify job accessibility inequalities. By looking at two large and very different regions, the municipality of São Paulo (SP) and the Greater London Area (GLA), we argue that distance decay functions built from current trip behaviors should be carefully used in evaluations of accessibility inequalities because it may underestimate disparities between socio-occupational groups and also result in a misleading interpretation of impedance factors. Two distinct approaches were implemented to support those claims. We first estimate group-specific distance decay functions, considering only travel time. Secondly, we consider both travel time and travel cost relative to income to estimate zone-specific and city-specific distance decay functions for each one of the study areas. The population of both cases studies was stratified according to the NS-SEC standard to select the highest and the lowest socio-occupational groups and to explore job accessibility inequalities. It was found that higher-level and lower-level socio-occupational groups of SP and GLA present striking differences in terms of travel times and relative travel costs, with SP being more unequal. By applying the distance decay function of the lowest level socio-occupational group to the calculations of the job accessibility of the highest level group, and by adding travel cost to the analysis, we highlight inconsistencies between gravity-based accessibility calculations and theory, as trips taken by different groups can be mistakenly associated with willingness to travel. From a policy perspective, our findings emphasize that accessibility inequalities in large urban centers, especially in the Global South, can be underestimated if revealed mobilities are considered to represent the willingness to travel and by not taking into account the relative cost of travel.

Stability and Social Sustainability of Farm Household Income in Poland in 2003–2020

This article analyses the available income of farmer households in Poland in 2003–2020 in the context of their level, variability, and differentiation. The income situation of farmers was analysed from the intra-sectoral perspective and the inter-sectoral perspective by comparing the average monthly available income per capita of farmer households to the income of employees and total households. The research aimed to assess the stability of farmers’ incomes against the background of comparative groups and to assess their social sustainability. We understand farmers’ income parity relative to other socio-professional groups and a similar level of intra-sectoral differentiation. The source of empirical materials was the cyclical statistics of the Central Statistical Office prepared as part of the Household Budget Surveys, published in the years 2004–2021. It was found that despite a significant increase in the real income of farmers’ households in Poland over the studied years, the income disparity of farmers relative to other socio-occupational groups persisted. However, the income gap of farmers in relation to workers from the non-agricultural sector decreased from 35.1% in 2003 to an average of 15.7% in 2004–2020, which is largely due to the support for agriculture from the CAP funds. Compared to the analysed groups, the income of farmers’ households is characterised by the most significant instability and greater diversification. These results indicate a persistent deficit in the social sustainability of farmers’ household income in Poland.

Pautas de alimentación de la población gitana y la población general de España

ObjectiveThe NAOS (Nutrición, Actividad Física y Prevención de la Obesidad) strategy implemented by Spanish Ministry of Health proposes a range of healthy dietary guidelines. The objective of this article is to analyze the degree these nutritional patterns are monitored by the Roma population, compared to the rest of the population, compared to the total Spanish population. MethodsData from the 2012 National Health Survey and the 2014 Roma Health Survey were compared. Sex, age and socio-occupational scale were used as independent variables, applying a logistic regression analysis to assess their degree of influence. ResultsThere was less monitoring carried out by the Roma population of the dietary plans recommended by the Ministry of Health and differences of more of 20 percentage points were found in some of them. In both populations, age was the variable with the greatest influence, but even more so in the Roma population, while sex did not show statistical among Roma people. The follow-up data of these dietary patterns in the Roma population were lower in comparison with any of the socio-occupational groups of the rest of the population. ConclusionsThe Roma population is in a situation of inequality as regards the levels of adherence of the healthy dietary guidelines proposed by the Spanish NAOS strategy. The distance from these healthy eating habits is even greater among the younger Roma population.

Spatial Microsimulation Combined with Skater Regionalization Methods: A Study for the Paraíba Valley and North Coast Metropolitan Region Subregion 4 in the São Paulo State

This study analyzes the socio-occupational distribution in the Paraíba Valley and North Coast Metropolitan Region (in Portuguese: Região Metropolitana do Vale do Paraíba e Litoral Norte – RMVPLN) Subregion 4 using spatial microsimulation techniques. To fulfill the proposed objective, the Iterative Proportional Fitting (IPF) technique was used to obtain spatial microdata in the territorial census tracts unit through the 2010 Brazilian Demographic Census. After the Skater regionalization technique was applied, eight homogeneous socio-occupational groups were found. Overall, the proposed socio-occupational categories, studied at an intra-urban scale, allowed for highlighting the social structure on a subregion of the newest Metropolitan space in the São Paulo state. Although this is a preliminary study, it is already capable to identify inequalities degrees that consistently spatially segregate and the less privileged population socioeconomic groups.

Work-related lung cancer concentrate among lower status workers: a quantification approach

Background/Aim: Although the concentration of carcinogenic exposures within specific socio-occupational groups is widely acknowledged, most burden of disease (BOD) approaches focus on the general population, missing the dimension of occupational health inequities. This raises social justice issues as those quantification tools are increasingly used for discussing cancer prevention priorities and occupational disease compensation rules. Our general aim was to explore ways by which population health metrics could integrate occupational inequities, and to identify eventual data gaps. Our specific aim was to compare the burden of work-related lung cancer between different socio-economic groups taking into account three known occupational carcinogens (asbestos, silica and DME) and smoking. Methods: We conducted a secondary analysis of the population-based case-control study ICARE (Investigation sur les Cancers Respiratoires et l’Environnement). The study included 2926 lung cancer cases and 3555 frequency-matched controls covering 13% of the French population. Lifelong occupational exposures were assessed by job-exposure matrices and self-report. We compared sources of variation in the attributable fractions (AF) estimates, including interaction with socio-economic position (SEP) and SEP indicator (education or occupation-based), using STATA. Results: The analysis was based on men-only due to the limited number of exposures among women. The AF for the combined indicator of asbestos, silica and DME exposures was 29.4% (95%CI [23.9-34.4]) overall, while the AF for exposed blue-collar workers compared to non-exposed groups regardless of SEP was 26.9% (95%CI [21.9- 31.7]). AFs were slightly higher when capturing SEP through education. Our results provide quantified evidence that the burden of work-related lung cancer attributable to these 3 known carcinogens concentrates massively (over 90%) among manual workers. Conclusion: They exemplify the need for integrating indicators of occupation and industry sector into BOD estimates to inform decision-making in cancer prevention and compensation. More broadly, they plead for information systems linking SEP, environmental and occupational health.

ACCESS: An agent-based model to explore job accessibility inequalities

This paper presents ACCESS, an agent-based model for exploring job accessibility inequalities among different social groups. ACCESS allows for investigation on the impact of public transport and land use policies on the residential location of the working population and their accessibility to job opportunities. ACCESS can be adapted to different realities, allowing to represent societies with diverse socioeconomic disparities. A utility function composed of job accessibility and neighborhood status is maximized by agents during the residential location choice process. The model outputs include Lorenz curves considering the accessibility dimension, as well as Gini metrics to support the analysis of interventions impacts on accessibility inequalities. An empirical case study is performed on the municipality of Sao Paulo, which is characterized by high levels of inequality. Five experiments were simulated considering three different socio-occupational groups. The first experiment includes (i) new public mass rail transport lines, and the other four experiments consider the new transport infrastructure from the first experiment and add (ii) new social housing location strategies; (iii) new job locations; (iv) new jobs and different social housing supplies and location strategies; and (v) provision of social housing based on a government housing program. The results show that ACCESS allowed the residential location of different social status groups to be depicted with a high correlation to the observed situation. Regarding the case study, the results indicate that only having interventions on transport system is insufficient to provide a significant change in terms of inequality. Better results that impact inequality are reached with public mass rail transport interventions associated with land use policies with different social housing and job location programs.

Segregação socioespacial e oferta de serviços de saúde na Região Metropolitana de Belo Horizonte em 2010

Resumo O objetivo deste artigo é analisar a relação entre segregação socioespacial e oferta de serviços de saúde na Região Metropolitana de Belo Horizonte em 2010. Foram utilizados dados do Censo Demográfico, do Cadastro Nacional de Estabelecimentos de Saúde e da Relação Anual de Informações Sociais. As informações foram organizadas em áreas de ponderação por meio da extração de coordenadas geográficas e analisadas com estatística descritiva e correlação espacial. Os resultados apontam que os serviços públicos de atenção primária à saúde concentravam-se em áreas onde predominavam grupos socioocupacionais inferiores na hierarquia social, ainda que a disponibilidade de médicos não acompanhasse a mesma lógica. Os serviços privados localizavam-se em áreas segregadas por grupos intermediários e superiores, situados principalmente na capital.

Distributional change, income mobility and pro-poor growth: evidence from India

The study of income inequality and income mobility has been central to understanding India’s recent economic development. This paper, based on the first two waves of the India Human Development survey data, addresses three questions namely; (a) examining recent trends and sources of income inequality and their sources in rural and urban India, (b) whether households belonging to different socio-occupational groups have grown together and thereby factors relating to dynamic income distribution and finally (c) provides an analytical framework within which changes in income inequality over time are related to the extent to which income growth is pro-poor and to the extent of income reranking or mobility. Our results show the equalizing effect of progressive income growth was more than offset by the disequalising effect of reranking in India during the study period resulting in income inequality both in the rural and urban area.

Etatism versus liberalism: Economic attitudes in Poland after the world crisis

Purpose: The paper analyses etatist and liberal economic attitudes in Poland, their changes after the last economic crisis, and the differences in this respect between socio-occupational groups with a particular focus on managers, professionals, and business owners, on the one hand, and other working and non-working groups, on the other hand. Methodology: Individual-level data from three representative surveys conducted in 2012,2 2016, and 2017 on stratifed random samples of the whole adult Polish population are analyzed. Findings: Despite public legitimization of economy based on private ownership and the free market, Polish public opinion still shows strong preference for public ownership and state interventionism. This preference slowly diminishes. It differs between various socio-occupational groups: managers, professionals, and business owners are more liberal than others, especially non-working people and farmers. Research implications: Since strengthening the regulatory and controlling functions of the government in economic life is the recent tendency in Poland and other countries, the slowly growing liberal attitudes may counteract this direction. So far, however, the Polish public opinion strongly supports governmental intervention in the economy. Originality: So far, no one wrote a similar analysis of changes in etatist and liberal economic attitudes in the post-crisis Poland.

Linking data on work, health and lifestyle to explain socio-occupational inequality in Danish register-based incidence of diabetes

This study aimed to combine three consecutive cohorts representative of the general working population to estimate the lifestyle, work and health of the entire Danish working population and to explore the influence of these factors on socio-occupational inequality in relation to incident diabetes over ten years. This study linked the National Danish Diabetes Register with (a) three questionnaire rounds (1995, 2000, 2005) on work, health and lifestyle from the Danish Work Environment Cohort Study (DWECS) among 6823 representative Danish workers aged 30-59 years and (b) the different socio-occupational groups of the entire Danish population aged 30-59 years (n=1,833,756). The relative risk (RR) was calculated using a Poisson regression. In DWECS, none of the investigated job factors was associated with incident diabetes. Lifestyle factors in terms of smoking (RR = 1.35; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.07-1.70), high body mass index (overweight RR = 2.81; 95% CI 2.11-3.74 and obesity RR = 7.49; 95% CI 5.46-10.28) were risk factors for incident diabetes. When adjusted for health and lifestyle, there was no difference in diabetes risk among socio-occupational groups in DWECS. In the entire working population, there was a negative socio-occupational gradient for the risk of diabetes. Compared with professionals, workers in elementary occupations had the highest ten-year risk (RR = 2.06; 95% CI 2.01-2.12). CONCLUSIONS WE FOUND A SIGNIFICANT NEGATIVE SOCIO-OCCUPATIONAL GRADIENT IN THE RISK OF INCIDENT DIABETES HOWEVER, LIFESTYLE RATHER THAN WORK ENVIRONMENT APPEARS TO BE THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR AND ADJUSTING FOR THIS ALMOST ELIMINATED THE SOCIO-OCCUPATIONAL INEQUALITY FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF DIABETES.

Correlation between relative rates of hospital treatment or death due to ischaemic heart disease (IHD) and of IHD-related medication among socio-occupational and economic activities groups in Denmark, 1996-2005.

The aim of the present work was to establish whether or not prescribed medication is a usable risk indicator for work-related ischaemic heart disease (IHD), in Denmark. Weighted Spearman rank correlation coefficients (rho) were used to evaluate the agreement between Standardised Hazard Ratios (SHR) for hospital treatment or death due to IHD and SHR for purchase of prescriptions for medicine that may prevent IHD from (re)occurring, among socio-occupational and economic activities groups in Denmark. The SHR were based on a 10-year prospective follow-up of 2 million people in Danish national registers 1996-2005. We found approximately 7 times more cases of medicine usage (N = 411 651) than we did for hospital treatment or death (N = 55 684). The correlations between the 2 types of SHR were strong (rho = 0.94 for the socio-occupational groups; rho = 0.74 for the economic activities groups). We observed, however, one markedly contradictive result; the industrial group entitled 'general practitioner, dentists etc.' was associated both with significantly high rates of medicine usage (SHR = 1.15, 95% CI: 1.12-1.19) and significantly low rates of hospital treatment or death due to IHD (SHR = 0.80, 95% CI: 0.71-0.91). Apart from a few caveats, the strong correlations obtained in the present study signify that purchase of a prescription for IHD-related medication is a usable risk indicator for IHD in the working population of Denmark. The usage of medicine data in addition to or instead of the use of death or hospital data in epidemiological studies on work-related IHD risk will bring about a tremendous increase in statistical power.

The Decline of Indivisible Inheritance in Catalonia: Artisans, Sailors, and Merchants in Two Catalan Towns (1780–1860).

[[succession practicesindivisible inheritancemarriage contractstestamentsemigrationCatalonia ]] This article studies the decline of the traditional primogeniture-based Catalan inheritance system. The analysis of marriage contracts and testaments from two towns and their hinterland between 1780 and 1860 shows the variation in the succession practices among different sociooccupational groups. The study reveals that the decline of the indivisible inheritance started in the towns, whose inhabitants were mainly artisans, merchants, or sailors, a lot earlier than in the rural world. These transformations of traditional succession practices were fuelled by structural changes of the crafts and by the increasing emigration to America.

Constructing merit in the civil service: The French Ministry of Culture (1880–1980)

Merit-based procedures for evaluation and grading in the French Civil Service have often been studied with the idea that concepts and practices circulate between public and private sectors, domestic and foreign organizations. Less attention has been afforded the in-house origins of procedures for assessing the work of civil servants. This article focuses on the procedures gradually built up to evaluate government employees in the French Ministry of Culture. Light is shed on the difficulties of making good the Republic's promise to base merit on differences in talent alone. How is a civil servant's work to be measured? Are qualifications evaluated while seeing to it that as many employees as possible can be promoted? Focusing on procedures – imagined or actually implemented – for grading, evaluating and promoting museum personnel shows that the process follows a timing and modality that vary depending on one's position in the hierarchy. The evaluation process nevertheless creates ties between socio-occupational groups that all else separates. Ways to measure civil servants’ activity existed before the neomanagerial objection to bureaucratic rules and regulations of the 1960s; the French system for evaluating merit is, thus, not simply an importation of anglo-saxon managerial methods.

Estrutura sócio-ocupacional no Brasil

Este trabalho analisa a distribuição de grupos sócio-ocupacionais do mercado de trabalho brasileiro. Para cumprir com o objetivo proposto, apresenta alguns dos principais elementos do processo de formação das estruturas sociais modernas e analisa a composição dos grupos sócio-ocupacionais identificados em relação a uma série de características socioeconômicas. O pressuposto dessas análises é que a combinação entre a inserção ocupacional e o rendimento dos indivíduos cumpre um papel fundamental na definição dos complexos padrões sociais brasileiros. De maneira geral, a estrutura sócio-ocupacional proposta permite destacar o elevado grau de desigualdade e o baixo padrão sócio-ocupacional brasileiro, além de discriminar consistentemente importantes grupos socioeconômicos da população.

Construire le mérite dans la fonction publique d’État : l’exemple de la Culture (1880–1980)

Merit-based procedures for evaluating and grading civil servants in the French central government have often been studied from the angle of circulations of ideas or practices between the public and private sectors or toward foreign organizations. Less attention has been given to the internal origins of procedures for assessing the work of civil servants. This article focuses on the procedures gradually worked out to evaluate civil servants in the French Ministry of Culture. Light is shed on the difficulties of keeping the Republic's promise to base merit only a difference in talent alone. How to measure a civil servant's work? Are qualifications evaluated while seeing to it that as many government employees as possible receive promotions? This focus on procedures, imagined or actually used, for grading, evaluating and promoting the personnel in museums shows that these processes follow a timing and modality that vary depending on the level in the hierarchy. The evaluation process, however, does wield ties between socio-occupational groups that all else separates. Practices for measuring the work done by these civil servants existed before the neomanagerial objection to the bureaucratic system's rules and regulations in the 1960s. The French way of evaluating merit is not simply an importation of Anglo-Saxon managerial methods.

L’exposition professionnelle aux produits cancérogènes dans les Pays de la Loire

Summary Purpose of the study The aims of the study were to identify the working populations that were the most exposed to carcinogens in the Pays de la Loire region, to characterize occupational exposure to these products and to compare this to exposure on a national level. Methods Using the results of the 2003 SUMER study, we aimed to identify a segment of the sample, which would allow extrapolation of the results obtained for this sample to the population of the region. The regional results were then compared to national results. Results and discussion Men were more highly exposed to carcinogens than women. Significant social differences appeared in terms of exposure to carcinogenic products: 25 % of manual workers were exposed to carcinogenic products, whereas only 4.4 % of workers in other socio-occupational groups were similarly exposed. Workers aged less than 30years were more highly exposed than others. Among the exposed manual workers, 45 % were exposed to high levels of at least one carcinogenic product. In such situations, mainly encountered in the construction and manufacturing industries, collective protection was available in only one in three exposure situations, and individual protection was only rarely available. The SUMER study revealed the difficulties in establishing preventive measures for protection from exposure to carcinogenic products (when substitution is not possible) and identified the priority populations to be targeted to improve such prevention, i.e. young manual workers.

Social inequalities and correlates of psychotropic drug use among young adults: a population-based questionnaire study

BackgroundUse of psychotropic drugs is widespread in Europe, and is markedly more common in France than elsewhere. Young adults often fare less well than adolescents on health indicators (injury, homicide, and substance use). This population-based study assessed disparities in psychotropic drug use among people aged 18–29 from different socio-occupational groups and determined whether they were mediated by educational level, health status, income, health-related behaviours, family support, personality traits, or disability.MethodsA total of 1,257 people aged 18–29, randomly selected in north-eastern France completed a post-mailed questionnaire covering sex, date of birth, height, weight, educational level, occupation, smoking habit, alcohol abuse, income, health-status, diseases, reported disabilities, self-reported personality traits, family support, and frequent psychotropic medication for tiredness, nervousness/anxiety or insomnia. The data were analyzed using the adjusted odds ratios (ORa) computed with logistic models.ResultsUse of psychotropic drugs was common (33.2%). Compared with upper/intermediate professionals, markedly high odds ratios adjusted for sex were found for manual workers (2.57, 95% CI 1.02–6.44), employees (2.58, 1.11–5.98), farmers/craftsmen/tradesmen (4.97, 1.13–21.8), students (2.40, 1.06–5.40), and housewives (3.82, 1.39–10.5). Adjusting for all the confounders considered reduced the estimates to a pronounced degree for manual workers (adjusted OR 1.49, non-significant) but only slightly for the other socio-occupational groups. The odds ratio for unemployed people did not reach statistical significance. The significant confounders were: sex, not-good health status, musculoskeletal disorders and other diseases, being worried, nervous or sad, and lack of family support (adjusted odds ratios between 1.60 and 2.50).ConclusionThere were marked disparities among young adults from different socio-occupational groups. Sex, health status, musculoskeletal diseases, family support, and personality traits were related to use of psychotropic drugs. These factors mediated the higher risk strongly among manual workers and slightly among the other groups.

Tiring job and work related injury road crashes in the GAZEL cohort

The objective was to describe at-work and commuting crashes occurring in a cohort of French employees and to investigate occupational risk factors. The subjects were employees of the French national electricity and gas companies, Électricité de France and Gaz de France (EDF–GDF), who volunteered to join a research cohort (the GAZEL cohort which included 20,625 participants in 1989). Only crashes with injuries were considered. Crashes for the periods 1989–2001 were recorded together with the type of journey (commuting, work, private), the type of road-user, self-estimated responsibility, and injuries sustained by the subject. Annual incidences for gender/age groups and socio-occupational groups were computed for each of the two types of work related crashes. Occupational risk factor analyses were conducted using a Cox proportional hazards regression model with time-dependent covariates adjusting for the main confounders. A total of 146,285 person years at work were observed. Two indicators of self-reported work fatigue were associated with the occurrence of at-work crashes: “nervously tiring work” for males (RR = 1.6, 95% CI [1.1; 2.3]), sustained standing for females (RR = 3.0, 95% CI [1.0; 8.4]), adjusting for health status, location of residence, type of family, transport mode and mileage. As regards crashes while commuting, a self-reported uncomfortable position at work was a risk factor among women (RR = 1.9, 95% CI [1.1; 3.3]). On the other hand, these occupational factors were not linked to road crashes in private trips. Work related road crashes seem then to be a matter for a specific prevention. Preventing employees from becoming exhausted should be considered as the first way to initiate such a prevention.