How Subjective Social Status Affects Health: Gender Differences and Reciprocal Relationships

Dana Garbarski, University of Wisconsin at Madison

Recent work exploring the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and health has employed a psychosocial concept called subjective social status (SSS) as a mediator in the relationship. Prior analyses estimate models of this relationship separately for women and men, and thus estimate whether effects in the model are significantly different from zero for both genders separately. This analysis extends beyond the prior ones, using multiple-group models to demonstrate that SSS has a significantly different effect on women and men's self-reported health. This analysis also finds some evidence for a reciprocal relationship, where self-reported health affects SSS as well.