IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v230y2019icp37-48.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Intergenerational income mobility and health in Japan: A quasi-experimental approach

Author

Listed:
  • Okamoto, Shohei
  • Avendano, Mauricio
  • Kawachi, Ichiro

Abstract

Studies across Europe and the US report that childhood socioeconomic disadvantage is associated with poorer health in adulthood. By contrast, a study in Japan suggests that childhood socioeconomic disadvantage may be positive for adult health. In this paper, we assess the association between intergenerational income mobility and self-rated health in Japan, using detailed childhood income data for 1610 men and 1885 women aged 30–49 years. We use an instrumental variable approach to identify the causal effect of upward income mobility on adult health. We find that low father's income during childhood is associated with smoking and alcohol consumption in adult life for both men and women. For men, upward income mobility was associated with worse health. Certain behavioural choices related to income mobility, such as long working hours, may have detrimental health effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Okamoto, Shohei & Avendano, Mauricio & Kawachi, Ichiro, 2019. "Intergenerational income mobility and health in Japan: A quasi-experimental approach," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 230(C), pages 37-48.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:230:y:2019:i:c:p:37-48
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.03.042
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953619301923
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.03.042?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. José De Gregorio & Jong–Wha Lee, 2002. "Education and Income Inequality: New Evidence From Cross‐Country Data," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 48(3), pages 395-416, September.
    2. Simandan, Dragos, 2018. "Rethinking the health consequences of social class and social mobility," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 258-261.
    3. Ravallion, Martin, 2016. "The Economics of Poverty: History, Measurement, and Policy," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780190212773.
    4. Jo Blanden & Paul Gregg & Lindsey Macmillan, 2010. "Intergenerational Persistence in Income and Social Class: The Impact of Within-Group Inequality," The Centre for Market and Public Organisation 10/230, The Centre for Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol, UK.
    5. Eberhardt, M.S. & Pamuk, E.R., 2004. "The importance of place of residence: Examining health in rural and nonrural areas," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 94(10), pages 1682-1686.
    6. Chandola, Tarani & Bartley, Mel & Sacker, Amanda & Jenkinson, Crispin & Marmot, Michael, 2003. "Health selection in the Whitehall II study, UK," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 56(10), pages 2059-2072, May.
    7. Venkataramani, A.S. & Chatterjee, P. & Kawachi, I. & Tsai, A.C., 2016. "Economic opportunity, health behaviors, and mortality in the United States," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 106(3), pages 478-484.
    8. Tiikkaja, Sanna & Hemström, Örjan & Vågerö, Denny, 2009. "Intergenerational class mobility and cardiovascular mortality among Swedish women: A population-based register study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(4), pages 733-739, February.
    9. Jo Blanden & Paul Gregg & Lindsey Macmillan, 2013. "Intergenerational persistence in income and social class: the effect of within-group inequality," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 176(2), pages 541-563, February.
    10. Grossman, Michael, 1972. "On the Concept of Health Capital and the Demand for Health," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 80(2), pages 223-255, March-Apr.
    11. Hart, Carole L. & Davey Smith, George & Blane, David, 1998. "Social mobility and 21Â year mortality in a cohort of Scottish men," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 47(8), pages 1121-1130, October.
    12. Foverskov, Else & Holm, Anders, 2016. "Socioeconomic inequality in health in the British household panel: Tests of the social causation, health selection and the indirect selection hypothesis using dynamic fixed effects panel models," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 172-183.
    13. Ronald R. Rindfuss & Minja K. Choe & Noriko O. Tsuya & Larry L. Bumpass & Emi Tamaki, 2015. "Do low survey response rates bias results? Evidence from Japan," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 32(26), pages 797-828.
    14. D. Blane & S. Harding & M. Rosato, 1999. "Does social mobility affect the size of the socioeconomic mortality differential?: evidence from the Office for National Statistics Longitudinal Study," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 162(1), pages 59-70.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Klara Gurzo & Bitte Modin & Pekka Martikainen & Olof Östergren, 2022. "Pathways from Childhood Economic Conditions to Adult Mortality in a 1953 Stockholm Cohort: The Intermediate Role of Personal Attributes and Socioeconomic Career," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(12), pages 1-15, June.
    2. Kim, Yonsu & Lee, Yongsoo, 2023. "Economic development, intergenerational mobility, and health in South Korea," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Daza, Sebastian & palloni, alberto, 2018. "Income Mobility, Income Inequality and Mortality in the U.S," SocArXiv gdz2a, Center for Open Science.
    2. Strand, B.H. & Kunst, Anton, 2006. "Childhood socioeconomic status and suicide mortality in early adulthood among Norwegian men and women. A prospective study of Norwegians born between 1955 and 1965 followed for suicide from 1990 to 20," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(11), pages 2825-2834, December.
    3. Sunnee Billingsley, 2019. "Intragenerational social mobility and cause-specific premature mortality," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(2), pages 1-13, February.
    4. Claussen, Bjorgulf & Smits, Jeroen & Naess, Oyvind & Davey Smith, George, 2005. "Intragenerational mobility and mortality in Oslo: Social selection versus social causation," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 61(12), pages 2513-2520, December.
    5. Billingsley, Sunnee, 2012. "Intragenerational mobility and mortality in Russia: Short and longer-term effects," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(12), pages 2326-2336.
    6. Boyle, Paul J. & Norman, Paul & Popham, Frank, 2009. "Social mobility: Evidence that it can widen health inequalities," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(10), pages 1835-1842, May.
    7. French, Eric Baird & O’Dea, Cormac & MacCuish, Jamie, 2021. "The Intergenerational Elasticity of Earnings: Exploring the Mechanisms," CEPR Discussion Papers 15975, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Maite Blázquez & Elena Cottini & Ainhoa Herrarte, 2014. "The socioeconomic gradient in health: how important is material deprivation?," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 12(2), pages 239-264, June.
    9. Catherine Haeck & Pierre Lefebvre, 2020. "The Evolution of Cognitive Skills Inequalities by Socioeconomic Status across Canada," Working Papers 20-04, Research Group on Human Capital, University of Quebec in Montreal's School of Management.
    10. repec:cep:sticas:/179 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Paul Gregg & Lindsey Macmillan & Claudia Vittori, 2017. "Moving Towards Estimating Sons' Lifetime Intergenerational Economic Mobility in the UK," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 79(1), pages 79-100, February.
    12. Chris Belfield & Claire Crawford & Ellen Greaves & Paul Gregg & Lindsey Macmillan, 2017. "Intergenerational income persistence within families," IFS Working Papers W17/11, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    13. Brian Bell & Jack Blundell & Stephen Machin, 2023. "Where is the Land of Hope and Glory? The geography of intergenerational mobility in England and Wales," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 125(1), pages 73-106, January.
    14. García-Peñalosa, Cecilia & Petit, Fabien & van Ypersele, Tanguy, 2023. "Can workers still climb the social ladder as middling jobs become scarce? Evidence from two British cohorts," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    15. Jo Blanden & Lindsey Macmillan, 2014. "Education and Intergenerational Mobility: Help or Hindrance?," CASE Papers case179, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE.
    16. Martin Sanchez-Gomez & Edgar Breso & Gabriele Giorgi, 2021. "Could Emotional Intelligence Ability Predict Salary? A Cross-Sectional Study in a Multioccupational Sample," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(3), pages 1-10, February.
    17. Lekfuangfu, Warn N. & Odermatt, Reto, 2022. "All I have to do is dream? The role of aspirations in intergenerational mobility and well-being," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    18. Jo Blanden & Robert Haveman & Timothy Smeeding & Kathryn Wilson, 2014. "Intergenerational Mobility in the United States and Great Britain: A Comparative Study of Parent–Child Pathways," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(3), pages 425-449, September.
    19. Jake Anders & John Jerrim & Lindsey Macmillan, 2022. "Socio-economic inequality in young people's financial capabilities," CEPEO Working Paper Series 22-03, UCL Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities, revised Feb 2022.
    20. Andros Kourtellos & Chih Ming Tan & Steven N. Durlauf, 2022. "The Great Gatsby Curve," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 14(1), pages 571-605, August.
    21. Xu Sun & Xiaolu Lei & Baisen Liu, 2021. "Mobility Divergence in China? Complete Comparisons of Social Class Mobility and Income Mobility," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 153(2), pages 687-709, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:230:y:2019:i:c:p:37-48. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.