Intergenerational social mobility and its impact on health: research review

We have reviewed the research on the impact of social mobility on health with the use of diagonal reference models which allow considering in detail the relationship between the social status of the parental family, the status achieved by the individual and the experience of social mobility with health. The first hypothesis is about the impact of social mobility on health was put forward by P.A. Sorokin: he assumed a negative impact of the experience of mobility on human health, regardless of the past social position or status achieved. P. Blau believed that the experience of social mobility is neither a cause nor a consequence of health condition. Later, researchers wrote that the important thing is not the fact of the mobility experience, but the direction of social transition. According to J. Goldthorpe, the experience of upward mobility is associated with benefits. According to K. Newman, the experience of downward mobility entails negative consequences. For a long time there was no technical possibility to empirically test theoretical assumptions. The rapid development of statistical tools currently helps to carry out necessary analysis. The method of diagonal reference models is gaining popularity, in which the impact of the achieved status, parenthood, and the experience of social mobility is divided. A review of studies where the above models are used contributes to the discussion of the problem of the formation and reproduction of social inequalities in the field of health. We have summarized the conclusions obtained from the surveys of the population of different countries. Some authors confirm the acculturation hypothesis: mobile people adapt to new conditions and do not experience negative consequences of the experience of social transition. Others find confirmation of the hypothesis about the loss of well-being during the experience of downward mobility. In some works the authors show that the upward movement improves health condition. There is a large variation in the studied indicators of health and experience of social mobility which leads to a difference in the research results. The role of the social context in the severity of the impact of social mobility on health has not been sufficiently studied.