IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v292y2022ics0277953621008972.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Interactions between parental and personal socioeconomic resources and self-rated health: Adjudicating between the resource substitution and resource multiplication theories

Author

Listed:
  • Veenstra, Gerry
  • Vanzella-Yang, Adam

Abstract

A small body of research has documented intriguing findings, mostly from the United States but also from Europe, which suggest that the positive health effects of socioeconomic resources in adulthood may be conditioned by socioeconomic circumstances in childhood. There are two competing theories in this literature. The first contends that socioeconomic resources have a stronger effect on adult health for people from disadvantaged backgrounds because socioeconomic resources in adulthood substitute or compensate for a paucity of health-related resources earlier in life. The second contends that socioeconomic resources have a stronger effect on adult health for people from advantaged backgrounds because socioeconomic resources in adulthood compound or multiply the health effects of socioeconomic resources earlier in life. We used survey data from the 2012 Longitudinal and International Study of Adults linked to current and historical income data from the Canada Revenue Agency to investigate interactions between parental and personal socioeconomic resources – education and income, treated separately – as predictors of self-rated health in a sample of Canadians aged 25 to 50. Consistent with the resource multiplication theory, we found that the presumed benefits of personal family income for self-rated health were stronger for women from wealthier backgrounds than for women from poorer backgrounds. We found no evidence to support either theory among men. Overall, none of the interactions involving the education of parents or their adult children reached statistical significance. Our results are indicative of the importance of distinguishing between education and income for adults and their parents when adjudicating between these two theories.

Suggested Citation

  • Veenstra, Gerry & Vanzella-Yang, Adam, 2022. "Interactions between parental and personal socioeconomic resources and self-rated health: Adjudicating between the resource substitution and resource multiplication theories," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 292(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:292:y:2022:i:c:s0277953621008972
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114565
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953621008972
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114565?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. McLeod, C.B. & Lavis, J.N. & Mustard, C.A. & Stoddart, G.L., 2003. "Income Inequality, Household Income, and Health Status in Canada: A Prospective Cohort Study," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 93(8), pages 1287-1293.
    2. Schaan, Barbara, 2014. "The interaction of family background and personal education on depressive symptoms in later life," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 94-102.
    3. Janet Currie & Mark Stabile, 2003. "Socioeconomic Status and Child Health: Why Is the Relationship Stronger for Older Children?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(5), pages 1813-1823, December.
    4. Miles Corak, 2013. "Income Inequality, Equality of Opportunity, and Intergenerational Mobility," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 27(3), pages 79-102, Summer.
    5. Ross, Catherine E. & Mirowsky, John, 2011. "The interaction of personal and parental education on health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(4), pages 591-599, February.
    6. Humphries, Karin H. & van Doorslaer, Eddy, 2000. "Income-related health inequality in Canada," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 50(5), pages 663-671, March.
    7. Bauldry, Shawn, 2014. "Conditional health-related benefits of higher education: An assessment of compensatory versus accumulative mechanisms," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 94-100.
    8. Black, Sandra E. & Devereux, Paul J., 2011. "Recent Developments in Intergenerational Mobility," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 16, pages 1487-1541, Elsevier.
    9. Hay, David Ian, 1988. "Socioeconomic status and health status: A study of males in the Canada health survey," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 27(12), pages 1317-1325, January.
    10. Dunn, James R. & Veenstra, Gerry & Ross, Nancy, 2006. "Psychosocial and neo-material dimensions of SES and health revisited: Predictors of self-rated health in a Canadian national survey," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(6), pages 1465-1473, March.
    11. Prus, Steven G., 2011. "Comparing social determinants of self-rated health across the United States and Canada," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 50-59, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Veenstra, Gerry & Vanzella-Yang, Adam, 2020. "Family income and self-rated health in Canada: Using fixed effects models to control for unobserved confounders and investigate causal temporality," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 250(C).
    2. Steven Prus, 2007. "Age, SES, and Health: A Population Level Analysis of Health Inequalities over the Life Course," Social and Economic Dimensions of an Aging Population Research Papers 181, McMaster University.
    3. Matthew A. Andersson & Vida Maralani & Renae Wilkinson, 2022. "Origins and Destinations, but How Much and When? Educational Disparities in Smoking and Drinking Across Adolescence and Young Adulthood," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 41(2), pages 521-558, April.
    4. Sauro Mocetti & Giacomo Roma & Enrico Rubolino, 2022. "Knocking on Parents’ Doors: Regulation and Intergenerational Mobility," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 57(2), pages 525-554.
    5. Neidhöfer, Guido & Serrano, Joaquín & Gasparini, Leonardo, 2018. "Educational inequality and intergenerational mobility in Latin America: A new database," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 329-349.
    6. Azam Mehtabul, 2016. "Intergenerational Educational Persistence among Daughters: Evidence from India," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 16(4), pages 1-16, October.
    7. Guido Neidhöfer, 2019. "Intergenerational mobility and the rise and fall of inequality: Lessons from Latin America," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 17(4), pages 499-520, December.
    8. Piraino, Patrizio, 2015. "Intergenerational Earnings Mobility and Equality of Opportunity in South Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 396-405.
    9. Daniel D. Schnitzlein, 2016. "A New Look at Intergenerational Mobility in Germany Compared to the U.S," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 62(4), pages 650-667, December.
    10. Abdurrahman B. Aydemir & Hakki Yazici, 2017. "Intergenerational Education Mobility and the Level of Development: Evidence from Turkey," Koç University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum Working Papers 1717, Koc University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum.
    11. Bhashkar Mazumder, 2018. "Intergenerational Mobility in the United States: What We Have Learned from the PSID," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 680(1), pages 213-234, November.
    12. Hanol Lee & Jong‐Wha Lee, 2021. "Patterns and determinants of intergenerational educational mobility: Evidence across countries," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(1), pages 70-90, February.
    13. Diogo G. C. Britto & Alexandre Fonseca & Paolo Pinotti & Breno Sampaio & Lucas Warwar, 2022. "Intergenerational Mobility in the Land of Inequality," CESifo Working Paper Series 10004, CESifo.
    14. Théophile T. Azomahou & Eleni Yitbarek, 2021. "Intergenerational mobility in education: Is Africa different?," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 39(3), pages 503-523, July.
    15. Huang, Xiao & Huang, Shoujun & Shui, Ailun, 2021. "Government spending and intergenerational income mobility: Evidence from China," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 387-414.
    16. Jørgen Modalsli, 2017. "Intergenerational Mobility in Norway, 1865–2011," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 119(1), pages 34-71, January.
    17. Driouchi, Ahmed & Gamar, Alae, 2016. "The Gap between Educational & Social Intergenerational Mobility in Arab Countries," MPRA Paper 73998, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Tharcisio Leone, 2022. "The geography of intergenerational mobility: Evidence of educational persistence and the “Great Gatsby Curve” in Brazil," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(3), pages 1227-1251, August.
    19. Bethlehem A. Argaw, 2017. "Regional inequality of economic outcomes and opportunities in Ethiopia: A tale of two periods," WIDER Working Paper Series 118, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    20. Loree, Jacob, 2015. "State Level Income Inequality and Individual Self-Reported Health Status: Evidence from the United States," MPRA Paper 72638, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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:292:y:2022:i:c:s0277953621008972. 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.