TY  - JOUR
AU  - Cutler,David M.
AU  - Lleras-Muney,Adriana
AU  - Vogl,Tom
TI  - Socioeconomic Status and Health: Dimensions and Mechanisms
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 14333
PY  - 2008
Y2  - September 2008
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14333
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14333.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
David M. Cutler
Department of Economics
Harvard University
1875 Cambridge Street
Cambridge, MA  02138
Tel: 617/496-5216
Fax: 617/496-8951
E-Mail: dcutler@harvard.edu

Adriana Lleras-Muney
Department of Economics
9373 Bunche Hall
UCLA
Los Angeles, CA 90095
Tel: 310/825-3925
Fax: NA
E-Mail: alleras@ECON.UCLA.EDU

Tom Vogl
Department of Economics
Princeton University
363 Wallace Hall
Princeton, NJ 08544
Tel: 609/258-7392
Fax: 609/258-5974
E-Mail: tvogl@princeton.edu
AB  - This paper reviews the evidence on the well-known positive association between socioeconomic status and health.  We focus on four dimensions of socioeconomic status -- education, financial resources, rank, and race and ethnicity -- paying particular attention to how the mechanisms linking health to each of these dimensions diverge and coincide.  The extent to which socioeconomic advantage causes good health varies, both across these four dimensions and across the phases of the lifecycle.  Circumstances in early life play a crucial role in determining the co-evolution of socioeconomic status and health throughout adulthood.  In adulthood, a considerable part of the association runs from health to socioeconomic status, at least in the case of wealth.  The diversity of pathways casts doubt upon theories that treat socioeconomic status as a unified concept.
ER  -