Socioeconomic inequality and psychopathology: Are socioeconomic status and social class interchangeable?

doi:10.1016/S0277-9536(96)00355-3

Social Science & Medicine

Volume 45, Issue 3, August 1997, Pages 399-410

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0277-9536(96)00355-3 Get rights and content

Abstract

Two different ways of conceptualizing and measuring socioeconomic inequality (SEI) are described and contrasted: the commonly used socioeconomic status (SES) measures and a neo-Marxist measure of social class. It is argued that SES and social class stem from two different theoretical orientations towards socioeconomic inequality and that they focus on different aspects of inequality. These differences have implications for the role of SEI in relation to psychopathology. Using data from a large scale epidemiological survey that was conducted in Israel, it is shown that SES and social class measures are empirically distinct and that they explain different parts of the variance of psychopathology. It is concluded that since social class is theoretically as well as empirically distinct from SES, it has potential for contributing to our understanding of psychopathological phenomenon.

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Socioeconomic inequality and psychopathology: Are socioeconomic status and social class interchangeable?

Abstract

The neo-Marxist synthesis of Marx and Weber on class

Social inequality in ill health: the significance of occupational status, education and income—results from a Norwegian survey

Sociology of Health and Illness

Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society

Out of Utopia: Toward a Reorientation of Sociological Analysis

Some principles of stratification

American Sociological Review

Socioeconomic status (SES) and psychiatric disorders: are the issues still compelling?

Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology

Towards the development of a two-stage procedure for case identification and classification in psychiatric epidemiology

Mental Illness in the United States: Epidemiologic Estimates

Socioeconomic status and psychiatric disorders: the causation selection issue

Science

A diagnostic interview: the schedule for affective disorders and schizophrenia

Archives of General Psychiatry

Social class of men, women and families

Sociology

Regression analysis for sample survey

Sankhya C

PC Carp

Women and class analysis: in defence of the conventional view

Sociology

Women and class analysis: a reply to the replies

Sociology

Measures of association for cross-classification

Journal of the American Statistical Association

Women's jobs do make a difference: a reply to Goldthorpe

Sociology

SuperCarp

Is status attainment research atheoretical?

American Sociological Review

Are social class measures interchangeable?

Political Behavior

Job demands, job decision latitude and mental strain—implications for job redesign

Administrative Science Quarterly

A disaggregation of th relationship between socioeconomic status and psychological distress

American Sociological Review

Status attainment research and its image of society

American Sociological Review

Class and Conformity: A Study in Values

Job conditions and personality: a longitudinal assessment of their reciprocal effects

American Journal of Sociology