Family socio‐economic status (SES) is significantly related to disparities in children’s executive function. Children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds perform worse on executive function ...tasks than their peers from high‐SES families. The protective factors in the relationship between SES and executive function have not been sufficiently investigated, especially from the perspective of parents’ and children’s perceptions and expectations regarding SES. Therefore, this study aimed to examine whether parental subjective SES and children’s subjective social mobility separately moderated the relationship between family SES and children’s executive function among 885 participants aged 9–13 years. The results showed that family SES was positively related to the three components of executive function (cognitive flexibility, inhibitory control, and working memory). Moreover, the relationship between SES and cognitive flexibility was weak among the children with a high level of subjective social mobility or those whose parents had high levels of subjective SES. Among children from families with economic hardship, subjective social mobility is a potential protective factor mitigating the negative effects of low family SES on their cognitive flexibility.
Socioeconomic status (SES) is a complex and multidimensional construct, encompassing both independent objective characteristics (e.g., income or education) and subjective people's ratings of their ...placement in the socioeconomic spectrum. Within the growing literature on subjective SES belongingness and psychological well-being, subjective indices of SES have tended to center on the use of pictorial rank-related social ladders where individuals place themselves relative to others by simultaneously considering their income, educational level, and occupation. This approach, albeit consistent with the idea of these social ladders as summative or cognitive SES markers, might potentially constrain individuals' conceptions of their SES. This research (
= 368;
= 39.67,
= 13.40) is intended to expand prior investigations on SES and psychological well-being by revisiting the role of subjective SES. In particular, it (a) proposes an innovative adaptation of the traditional MacArthur Scale of subjective SES to income, education, and occupation, thus resulting in three separate social ladders; and (b) tests the empirical contribution of such three social ladders to psychological well-being. Overall, our findings showed that the novel education and occupation ladders (excluding the income ladder) are predictive of a significant part of the variance levels of psychological well-being that is not due to canonical objective metrics of SES (i.e., income, education, and occupation), or to the conventional MacArthur Scale of subjective SES. Although preliminary, these results underscore the need to further reconsider (subjective) SES-related conceptualization and measurement strategies to gather a more comprehensive understanding of the SES-psychological well-being link.
Objective: Both social stratification (e.g., social rank) as well as economic resources (e.g., income) are thought to contribute to socioeconomic health disparities. It has been proposed that ...subjective socioeconomic status (an individual's perception of his or her hierarchical rank) provides increased predictive utility for physical health over and above more traditional, well-researched socioeconomic constructs such as education, occupation, and income. Method: PsycINFO and PubMed databases were systematically searched for studies examining the association of subjective socioeconomic status (SES) and physical health adjusting for at least 1 measure of objective SES. The final sample included 31 studies and 99 unique effects. Meta-analyses were performed to: (a) estimate the overlap among subjective and objective indicators of SES and (b) estimate the cumulative association of subjective SES with physical health adjusting for objective SES. Potential moderators such as race and type of health indicator assessed (global self-reports vs. more specific and biologically based indicators) were also examined. Results: Across samples, subjective SES shows moderate overlap with objective indicators of SES, but associations are much stronger in Whites than Blacks. Subjective SES evidenced a unique cumulative association with physical health in adults, above and beyond traditional objective indicators of SES (Z = .07, SE = .01, p < .05). This association was stronger for self-rated health than for biologically based and symptom-specific measures of health. Almost all available data were cross-sectional and do not allow for strong causal inference. Conclusions: Subjective SES may provide unique information relevant to understanding disparities in health, especially self-rated health.
•Socioeconomic status (SES) disparities in health are partly attributable to SES differences in health behaviours.•We examined SES differences in health behaviours.•We reviewed biopsychological ...pathways that contribute to this.•We discussed how biopsychological systems enable adaptive regulatory shifts.•We discussed these processes within an adaptative evolutionary framework.
The purpose of this article was to explore how individuals’ position in a socioeconomic hierarchy is related to health behaviours that are related to socioeconomic disparities in health. We identified research which shows that: (a) low socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with living in harsh environments, (b) harsh environments are related to increased levels of stress and inflammation, (c) stress and inflammation impact neural systems involved in self-control by sensitising the impulsive system and desensitising the reflective system, (d) the effects are inflated valuations of small immediate rewards and deflated valuations of larger delayed rewards, (e) these effects are observed as increased delay discounting, and (f) delay discounting is positively associated with practicing more unhealthy behaviours. The results are discussed within an adaptive evolutionary framework which lays out how the stress response system, and its interaction with the immune system and brain systems for decision-making and behaviours, provides the biopsychological mechanisms and regulatory shifts that make widespread conditional adaptability possible. Consequences for policy work, interventions, and future research are discussed.
This study demonstrates that body mass in middle and late adulthood is a consequence of the complex interplay among individuals' genes, lifetime socioeconomic experiences, and the historical context ...in which they live. Drawing on approximately 9,000 genetic samples from the Health and Retirement Study, we first investigate how socioeconomic status (SES) over the life course moderates the impact of 32 established obesity-related genetic variants on body mass index (BMI) in middle and late adulthood. We then consider differences across birth cohorts in the genetic influence on BMI, and cohort variations in the moderating effects of life-course SES on the genetic influence. Our analyses suggest that persistently low SES over the life course or downward mobility (e.g., high SES in childhood but low SES in adulthood) amplify the genetic influence on BMI, and persistently high SES or upward mobility (e.g., low SES in childhood but high SES in adulthood) compensate for such influence. For more recent birth cohorts, the genetic influence on BMI becomes stronger, but the moderating effects of lifetime SES on the genetic influence are weaker compared to earlier cohorts. We discuss these findings in light of social changes during the obesity epidemic in the United States.
Race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status (SES) are social categories that capture differential exposure to conditions of life that have health consequences. Race/ethnicity and SES are linked to each ...other, but race matters for health even after SES is considered. This commentary considers the complex ways in which race combines with SES to affect health. There is a need for greater attention to understanding how risks and resources in the social environment are systematically patterned by race, ethnicity and SES, and how they combine to influence cardiovascular disease and other health outcomes. Future research needs to examine how the levels, timing and accumulation of institutional and interpersonal racism combine with other toxic exposures, over the life-course, to influence the onset and course of illness. There is also an urgent need for research that seeks to build the science base that will identify the multilevel interventions that are likely to enhance the health of all, even while they improve the health of disadvantaged groups more rapidly than the rest of the population so that inequities in health can be reduced and ultimately eliminated. We also need sustained research attention to identifying how to build the political support to reduce the large shortfalls in health.
Infants undergo fundamental shifts in perception that are reported to be critical for language acquisition. In particular, infants’ perception of native and non‐native sounds begins to align with the ...properties of their native sound system. Thus far, empirical evidence for this transition – perceptual narrowing – has drawn from socio‐economically and linguistically narrow populations from limited world regions. In this study, infants were sampled across diverse socio‐economic strata and linguistic development in Singapore. One hundred and 16 infants were tested on their ability to discriminate both a native phonetic contrast (/ba/ versus /da/) and a non‐native Hindi contrast (/ta/ versus /ʈa). Infants ranged in age from 6 to 12 months. Associations between age and discrimination varied by contrast type. Results demonstrated that infants’ native sensitivities were positively predicted by family SES, whereas non‐native sensitivities were not. Maternal socio‐economic factors uniquely predicted native language sensitivity. Findings suggest that infants’ sensitivity to native sound contrasts is influenced by their family socio‐economic status.
Research Highlights
We investigated effects of socio‐economic status on infant speech perception.
Infants were tested on native and non‐native speech discrimination.
Socio‐economic status predicted native speech discrimination.
Maternal occupation was a key predictor of native speech discrimination.
This study investigates the effects of socio‐economic status on infant speech perception. The study demonstrates that family SES, in particular, maternal factors, predicts infants' abilities to distinguish native sounds.
Background and aims
Lottery gambling participation tends to be higher among lower socio‐economic status (SES) individuals, but it is unclear how this relationship differs as a function of lottery ...type. We estimated how the relationship between SES and lottery gambling rates varies across different types of lottery gambling: fixed‐prize, progressive‐prize (jackpot) and instant‐win (scratch card) lottery tickets in a large Canadian city.
Design
Neighborhood‐level lottery purchase data obtained from the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Commission were analysed in conjunction with demographic data. Mixed‐effects regression was used to assess simultaneously how neighborhood‐level SES predicts per‐person lottery gambling rates across fixed‐prize, progressive‐prize lottery and instant‐win lotteries.
Setting and participants
Neighborhoods in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in the years 2012–15.
Measurements
Per‐capita sales in dollars (CAD) of fixed‐prize lottery, progressive‐prize lottery and instant‐win tickets in Toronto postal codes. SES was estimated as a composite of income, years of education and white‐collar employment.
Findings
Lower‐SES neighborhoods engaged in higher rates of lottery gambling overall β = −0.084, standard error (SE) = 0.24, P = 0.0007. The predictive effect of SES varied significantly by lottery type (fixed‐prize: β = −0.105, SE = 0.004, P < 0.0001, instant‐win: β = −0.054, SE = 0.004, P < 0.0001; relative to progressive‐prize). The predictive effect of SES was strongest for fixed‐prize lotteries and weakest for progressive‐prize lotteries, such that we did not observe a significant predictive effect of SES for progressive‐prize lotteries (β = −0.031, SE = 0.024, P = 0.198).
Conclusions
People in lower socio‐economic status neighborhoods in Toronto, Canada appear to engage in more lottery gambling than those in higher socio‐economic status neighborhoods, with the difference being largest for fixed prize lotteries followed by instant win lotteries, and no clear difference for progressive prize lotteries.
ABSTRACT
In the present study, we examined the relationship between socio‐economic status (SES) and creativity through a meta‐analysis of 885 effect sizes from 151 samples in 117 studies. Analyses of ...a multivariate model with a robust variance estimator showed a small positive correlation between creativity and SES (r = .120, 95% CI 0.086, 0.154). Further analyses with four groups of moderators (i.e., creativity measure, SES indicator, sample characteristics, and study characteristics) indicated that the mean effect size is significantly higher when the creativity index is flexibility rather than fluency or when SES is measured by parental or one's own level of education and parental occupation rather than the location of residency. In addition, the relationship between creativity and SES dissipated as the students progressed from elementary school through college. The potential role of schooling in the creativity‐SES link is discussed.
The United States has the highest number of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the world, with high variability in cases and mortality between communities. We aimed to quantify the associations ...between socio-economic status and COVID-19–related cases and mortality in the U.S.
The study design includes nationwide COVID-19 data at the county level that were paired with the Distressed Communities Index (DCI) and its component metrics of socio-economic status.
Severely distressed communities were classified by DCI>75 for univariate analyses. Adjusted rate ratios were calculated for cases and fatalities per 100,000 persons using hierarchical linear mixed models.
This cohort included 1,089,999 cases and 62,298 deaths in 3127 counties for a case fatality rate of 5.7%. Severely distressed counties had significantly fewer deaths from COVID-19 but higher number of deaths per 100,000 persons. In risk-adjusted analysis, the two socio-economic determinants of health with the strongest association with both higher cases per 100,000 persons and higher fatalities per 100,000 persons were the percentage of adults without a high school degree (cases: RR 1.10; fatalities: RR 1.08) and proportion of black residents (cases and fatalities: Relative risk(RR) 1.03). The percentage of the population aged older than 65 years was also highly predictive for fatalities per 100,000 persons (RR 1.07).
Lower education levels and greater percentages of black residents are strongly associated with higher rates of both COVID-19 cases and fatalities. Socio-economic factors should be considered when implementing public health interventions to ameliorate the disparities in the impact of COVID-19 on distressed communities.
•Socio-economic factors play an important role in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) prevalence and mortality.•Lower education level was the strongest association with both cases and fatalities.•The higher proportion of Black residents was also associated with cases and fatalities.•The poverty rate and median income were also associated with COVID-19 cases.•Median income and change in employment were also associated with COVID-19 fatalities.
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