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Beyond Socioeconomic Status: The Role of Different Types of Capitals in Shaping Health in Iceland

Author(s): Sigrún Ólafsdóttir

Friday 16  |   13:00-13:20

Room: TP51

Session: Health inequalities

Sociologists have long been interested in the impact of social position on health. In general, those who are more vulnerable experience worse health than those who have more advantage in society. Research has focused on various positions, including class, race and gender, but scholars increasingly call for a more nuanced understanding of social stratification. Building on Bourdieu´s theory of different kinds of capital, I examine the impact of economic, cultural, social and symbolic capital on health. Using recent survey data from Iceland (N>1,000) which includes unique measures on these four kinds of capital, I ask how these more nuanced measure, independently and in interaction with more widely used measures of social location, impact physical and mental health. The results show that economic, social and symbolic capital impact health, specifically that those who hold more capital report better health. The impact is in addition to the effect of other measures of social locations. The broader implications are that in a society that may be more equal than most, there are still clear distinctions between social groups that impact health in meaningful ways, not only in terms of the position the individual holds in the stratificatification system, but in a more nuanced ways of who people know, how powerful they consider themselves to be and the economic power they perceive themselves to have.