Socioeconomic Inequalities in Type 2 Diabetes: Mediation Through Status Anxiety?

Objectives: While status anxiety has received attention as a potential mechanism generating health inequalities, empirical evidence is still limited. Studies have been ecological and have largely focused on mental and not physical health outcomes. Methods: We conducted individual-level analyses to assess status anxiety (feelings of inferiority resulting from social comparisons) and resources (financial difficulties) as mediators of the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) (education/occupation/employment status) and type 2 diabetes (T2D). We used cross-sectional data of 21,150 participants (aged 18-70 years) from the Amsterdam-based HELIUS study. We estimated associations using logistic regression models and estimated mediated proportions using natural effect modelling. Results: Odds of status anxiety were higher among participants with a low SES [e.g., OR = 2.66 (95% CI: 2.06-3.45) for elementary versus academic occupation]. Odds of T2D were 1.49 (95% CI: 1.12-1.97) times higher among participants experiencing status anxiety. Proportion of the SES-T2D relationship mediated was 3.2% (95% CI: 1.5%-7.0%) through status anxiety and 10.9% (95% CI: 6.6%-18.0%) through financial difficulties. Conclusion: Status anxiety and financial difficulties played small but consistent mediating roles. These individual-level analyses underline status anxiety's importance and imply that status anxiety requires attention in efforts to reduce health inequalities.

Long-term labor market returns to upper secondary school track choice: Leveraging idiosyncratic variation in peers' choices

Vocational education and training (VET) is theorized to play a dual role for inequality of labor market outcomes: the role of a safety net and the role of socioeconomic diversion. In this paper, we test these hypotheses by examining the long-term labor market returns to track choice in upper secondary education in Denmark using an instrumental variable approach that relies on random variation in school peers' educational decisions. We report two main findings. First, VET diverts students on the margin to the academic track away from higher-status but not higher-paying occupations. Second, VET protects students on the margin to leaving school from risks of non-employment and unskilled work, also leading to higher earnings. These results suggest that in countries with a highly compressed wage structure, a strong VET system benefits students unlikely to continue to college, while causing few adverse consequences for students on the margin to choosing academic education.

How teachers form educational expectations for students: A comparative factorial survey experiment in three institutional contexts

While schools are thought to use meritocratic criteria when evaluating students, research indicates that teachers hold lower expectations for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. However, it is unclear what the unique impact is of specific student traits on teacher expectations, as different traits are often correlated to one another in real life. Moreover, research has neglected the role of the institutional context, yet tracking procedures, financial barriers to education, and institutionalized cultural beliefs may influence how teachers form expectations. We conducted a factorial survey experiment in three contexts that vary with respect to these institutional characteristics (The United States, New York City; Norway, Oslo; the Netherlands, Amsterdam). We asked elementary school teachers to express expectations for hypothetical students whose characteristics were experimentally manipulated. Teachers in the different contexts used the same student traits when forming expectations, yet varied in the importance they attached to these traits. In Amsterdam - where teachers track students on the basis of their performance and tracking bears significant consequences for educational careers - we found a large impact of student performance. In Oslo - where institutions show an explicit commitment to equality of educational opportunity - teachers based their expectations less on student effort, and seemed to make more inferences about student performance by a student's socio-economic background. New York teachers seemed to make few inferences about student performance based on their socio-economic background.

Are universities left-wing bastions? The political orientation of professors, professionals, and managers in Europe

Universities are accused of being left-wing bastions, unwelcoming to conservative and right-wing professors. However, we know little about the political orientation of professors in comparison to other professionals, which would be the right comparison group if we want to know whether universities are potentially hostile environments to conservatives. Examining culturally and economically oriented political orientations in Europe, it is demonstrated that professors are more liberal and left-leaning than other professionals. However, there is no greater homogeneity of political orientations among the professoriate relative to other specific professions, suggesting that there is a diversity of opinions which is similar to what professionals would find in other occupations. One exception concerns attitudes towards immigration, on which professors have more liberal orientations and comparatively low residual variance around that more liberal mean. Importantly, the difference between professors and other professionals is not so clear within graduates from the social sciences, but emerges more clearly among graduates with a medical, STEM, economics or law degree. An important political cleavage exists between professionals and managers, a group of similar social standing.

Sibship Size and Gendered Resource Dilution in Different Societal Contexts

Resource dilution theory hypothesizes that children’s educational attainment suffers from being raised with many siblings, as the parental resources have to be shared with more children. Based on economic and cultural theories, we hypothesize that resource dilution is gendered: especially a larger number of brothers is harmful to a person’s educational attainment. Using the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, covering 18 European countries, we show that the number of brothers is more negatively related with the odds of obtaining a college degree than the number of sisters. This holds particularly for women. However, this pattern is weaker in countries that are known to have a more gender-egalitarian climate.

Education and occupational status in 14 countries: the role of educational institutions and labour market coordination

This article explores the role of national institutional factors--more specifically, the level of skill transparency of the education system and labour market coordination--in accounting for cross-national differences in the relationship between education and occupational status. Consistent with previous research, our findings suggest that skill transparency is the primary moderator. Countries with a highly transparent educational system (i.e., extensive tracking, strong vocational orientation, limited tertiary enrolment) tend to be characterized by a strong relationship between education and occupational status. These findings hold even after controlling for the level of labour market coordination. Nevertheless, we also find that labour market coordination plays an independent role by dampening the effect of education on occupational status. Taken together, these results suggest two quite different policy implications: (1) strengthening the skill transparency of the education system by increasing secondary and tertiary-level differentiation may strengthen the relationship between education and occupation, regardless of the level of coordination, and (2) increasing labour market coordination could lead to improved social inclusion and a reduction in inequalities related to educational attainment.

Cultural capital or relative risk aversion? Two mechanisms for educational inequality compared

In this paper we empirically examined two explanatory mechanisms for educational inequality: cultural reproduction and relative risk aversion, using survey data taken from secondary school pupils in Amsterdam. Cultural reproduction theory seeks to explain class variations in schooling by cultural differences between social classes. Relative risk aversion theory argues that educational inequalities can be understood by between-class variation in the necessity of pursuing education at branching points in order to avoid downward mobility. We showed that class variations in early demonstrated ability are for a substantial part cultural: cultural capital - measured by parental involvement in highbrow culture - affected school performance at the primary and secondary level. However, relative risk aversion - operationalized by being concerned with downward mobility - strongly affects schooling ambitions, whereas cultural capital had no effect. Thus, we conclude that 'primary effects' of social origin on schooling outcomes are manifested through cultural capital and not through relative risk aversion (in addition to other potential sources of class variations such as genetics). Relative risk aversion, and not cultural capital, affects schooling ambitions, which is relevant for our understanding of secondary effects.