CONCLUSIONES SOBRE EL PROBLEMA DE LA CRISIS ECONOMICA.-

Dimensions of childhood socioeconomic position were captured using questions relating to the participants’ socioeconomic circumstances as children. In SHARELIFE, participants were asked to recall their socioeconomic conditions at aged 10 years old. The choice of measures of childhood socioeconomic position was restricted by the questions asked in the survey. However, the measures included can be considered to represent different dimensions of childhood socioeconomic position and have been used in previous studies examining early life socioeconomic influences on health (Galobardes et al., 2006a). Four measures of childhood socioeconomic position were included:

1. Occupational position of the main breadwinner 2. Number of books in the household

3. Number of rooms per capita in the accommodation

4. Number of amenities in the accommodation (e.g. central heating).

Table 4.7 summarises the survey questions used to derive the measures of childhood socioeconomic position and the theoretical underpinning of each measure. The operationalisation of each indicator is then described.

Table 4.7: Measures of childhood socioeconomic position used in this study

What best describes the occupation of the household's main breadwinner when you were 10?

1. Legislator, senior official or manager 2. Professional

3. Technician or associate professional 4. Clerk

5. Service, shop or market sales worker 6. Skilled agricultural or fishery worker 7. Craft or related trades worker 8. Plant/machine operator or assembler 9. Elementary occupation

10. Armed forces

 Cultural capital

Approximately how many books were there in the place you lived in when you were 10? (Do not count magazines, newspapers, or your school books).

1. None or very few (0-10 books) 2. Enough to fill one shelf (11-25 books) 3. Enough to fill one bookcase (26-100

books)

4. Enough to fill two bookcases (101-200 books)

5. Enough to fill two or more bookcases (more than 200 books)

Number of rooms per capita

1. How many rooms did your household occupy in this accommodation, including bedrooms but excluding kitchen, bathrooms, and hallways? (Do not count boxroom, cellar, attic etc.).

2. Including yourself, how many people lived in your household at this accommodation when you were 10?

Number of amenities

Did this accommodation have any of the features on this card when you were aged 10?

1. Fixed bath

2. Cold running water supply 3. Hot running water supply 4. Inside toilet

5. Central heating 6. None of these

Occupational position of the main breadwinner

The occupational position of the main breadwinner is considered to reflect the

respondent’s general family living standards, access to material resources and the family’s social prestige during childhood (Lawlor et al., 2005b). As described above, the

occupation of the main breadwinner was recorded using the major group ISCO-88 codes.

There was also an additional category used if the respondent spontaneously reported there was no main breadwinner in the family (N=281) and in those cases the values were coded as missing. Subsequently, missing values (N=698) for this variable were updated with data from Wave 1, in which participants were asked: “What is or was the last job [your] [mother/father] had?” (SHARE, 2005). Missing values were imputed with the father’s occupation in 357 cases and the mother’s in 19 cases, leaving at total of 322 (1.8%) individuals still missing values for this variable. For those with complete data (N=9,488) for the occupation of the main breadwinner aged 10 years and the father’s last occupation, the correlation between the ISCO-88 major group codes was 0.49. As

described previously the ISCO-88 codes for the occupation of the main breadwinner were converted to manual versus non-manual, skill level, and SIOPS classifications. Table 4.8 displays descriptive statistics for the childhood occupational variable.

Table 4.8: Descriptive statistics for the occupation of the main breadwinner

Occupation (ISCO-88 categories) N %

1. Legislators, senior officials and managers 792 4.3

2. Professionals 648 3.5

3. Technicians and associate professionals 843 4.6

4. Clerk 1,083 5.9

5. Service workers and shop and market sales workers 1,369 7.5

6. Skilled agricultural and fishery workers 4,915 26.8

7. Craft and related workers 3,946 21.5

8. Plant and machine operators and assemblers 933 5.1

9. Elementary occupations 3,185 17.4

10. Armed forces 288 1.6

Missing 322 1.8

Total 18,324 100.0

N=number of individuals

Number of books in the household

The number of books in the respondent’s household was considered to reflect similar dimensions of socioeconomic position as with the occupational variable above. However, it may also be a better reflection of parental education level and can be considered as a measure of early ‘cultural capital’, in its objectified state (Bourdieu, 1986). This variable was kept in its original ordinal format (Table 4.9).

Table 4.9: Descriptive statistics for the number of books in the household

Number of books in the household N %

None or very few (0-10 books) 7,700 42.0

Enough to fill one shelf (11-25 books) 4,118 22.5

Enough to fill one bookcase (26-100 books) 3,967 21.7

Enough to fill two bookcases (101-200 books) 1,192 6.5

Enough to fill two or more bookcases (more than 200 books) 1,154 6.3

Missing 193 1.1

Total 18,324 100.0

N=number of individuals

Number of rooms per capita in the accommodation

To generate the number of rooms per capita in the respondent’s accommodation two questionnaire items were used (Table 4.7). The number of bedrooms in the

accommodation was divided by the number of individuals in the household to produce a continuous indicator. This derived variable ranged from 0 to 10, and had a mean of 0.7 (SD=0.4). A value of 0 was possible if the individual lived in accommodation without a bedroom, for example a boxroom or an attic. Information required to calculate the rooms per capita was missing among 220 (1.2%) individuals. As well as reflecting the general living standards and material resources of the respondent as a child, it could also be considered to measure overcrowding in the accommodation which may negatively influence health and wellbeing via the spread of infectious diseases (Galobardes et al., 2006a).

Number of amenities in the accommodation

This variable was derived from the sum of the number of amenities (fixed bath, cold running water supply, hot running water supply, inside toilet, or central heating) in the respondent’s accommodation aged 10 years. It has a similar meaning as the above measure, mainly representing access to material resources and is a useful indicator of the childhood socioeconomic conditions of older people in developed societies (Galobardes et al., 2006a). A lack of amenities in the household, particularly a running water supply, may also impact on health and wellbeing through the increased risk of infection. The number of amenities ranged from 0 to 5, the mean was 2.1 (SD=1.8) and 110 (0.6%) individuals were missing information for this variable.