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Linking credentialed skills, social class, working conditions and self‐reported health: a focus on health inequality‐generating mechanisms
Author(s) -
Vanroelen Christophe,
Levecque Katia,
Moors Guy,
Louckx Fred
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
sociology of health and illness
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.146
H-Index - 97
eISSN - 1467-9566
pISSN - 0141-9889
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9566.2010.01260.x
Subject(s) - inequality , social class , focus (optics) , class (philosophy) , social inequality , working class , psychology , sociology , social psychology , political science , mathematics , computer science , law , artificial intelligence , mathematical analysis , physics , politics , optics
In this study, focus is on the mechanisms linking credentialed skills and social class relations to five dimensions of occupational stressors and three self‐reported health outcomes: persistent fatigue, musculoskeletal complaints and emotional wellbeing. We test for direct health associations of skills/class. Moreover, indirect health associations of skills/class, through differential exposure to occupational stressors and effect modifications of the occupational stressors, are tested. A modified LISREL analysis is applied to a representative cross‐sectional sample of 11,099 Flemish wage‐earners. The direct health effects of credentialed skills/class are limited, but they are clearly indirectly related to the self‐reported health outcomes through differential exposure to occupational stressors. The indirect mechanisms point to both reinforcing and moderating effects on socio‐economic health inequalities. Two cases of effect modification are also observed: social class modifying the association between control and persistent fatigue; and skills affecting the association between the quality of social relations and emotional wellbeing. Differential exposure to occupational stressors is a crucial mechanism linking skills/class to socio‐economic health inequalities. Direct effects and effect modification of class/skills are relevant, but of limited importance. One of the effect modifications found suggests that a specific focus on contradictory class positions might be warranted in future research.