Subjective social status and its relationship to health and health behavior: comparing two different scales in university students

Abstract

Background Little is known about the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and health in late adolescence. As it is difficult to measure SES in this age group directly, we used two subjective social status (SSS) scales with different reference groups for social comparison in the relatively homogeneous group of university students and analyzed the relationship with health and health behaviors. Methods We used two 10-rung ladders, a societal and a university one, to measure SSS in students (n = 689, 16-29 years). We compared the scales' ratings and analyzed relationships with sociodemographic factors, health outcomes and behaviors. Results On average, students rated their individual SSS higher on the university scale (6.87) than on the societal one (6.41). Regarding health outcomes and behaviors, we found similar results for both scales, while sociodemographic variables were more likely to be associated with the societal scale. Conclusion SSS seems to be a useful measure besides the objective SES. Our data suggest that both SSS scales are helpful in the framework of health inequality but differ slightly in what they measure. More detailed research may help to determine which scale is appropriate for individual study context.

Playing the complex game of social status in school – a qualitative study

“…Still, we believe that participants on the lower half (step 1–5) of the ladder (21% of the participants) were sufficiently represented to gain different perspectives on the subject. Compared with quantitative studies [ 10 , 11 ], our study had a similar or even higher representation of lower-status participants. The study was performed in Sweden, a high-income country ranking high on both the Human Development Index and the Gender Development Index [ 46 ], suggesting that the transferability primarily relates to similar cultures.…”

“…In one ladder adolescents were asked to assess their position within their school; in the other they were asked to evaluate their families’ position in the society. Subjective social status in school has been associated with self-rated health, physical symptoms, anger, psychological distress, smoking, drinking and body mass index [ 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 ]. Joffer and colleagues [ 10 ] found that the proportion of adolescents with high self-rated health increased with higher rungs on a ladder measuring social status in school, and that boys perceived their own social status as higher than girls did.…”

Sozialbedingte Ungleichheiten von Gesundheit und Gesundheitsverhalten bei Studierenden

“…Diese beschreibt eine soziale Leiter mit zehn Sprossen, auf der sich die Befragten verglichen mit der allgemeinen Bevölkerung hinsichtlich ihres wahrgenommenen Status platzieren. Zum anderen wurde eine universitätsspezifische Lei-ter aufgenommen, auf welcher sich die Befragten im Vergleich zu ihren Mitstudierenden einordnen [17]. Auch diese ergab sich in vorangegangenen Analysen als hilfreiches Messinstrument [17].…”

“…Zum anderen wurde eine universitätsspezifische Lei-ter aufgenommen, auf welcher sich die Befragten im Vergleich zu ihren Mitstudierenden einordnen [17]. Auch diese ergab sich in vorangegangenen Analysen als hilfreiches Messinstrument [17].…”

“…Eine alternative Erfassung ist der subjektive Sozialstatus, auch bekannt als MacArthur Scale [14], welcher eine soziale Leiter darstellt, auf der sich Befragte abhängig von der gewählten Referenzgruppe einstufen können [15,16]. Die MacArthur Scale wurde bereits für Studierende in Deutschland pilotiert und zeigte sich als valides Messinstrument in dieser Zielgruppe [17].…”