Close window to return

Issue 6, July 2000, pp.6.

Reports from the Programme conference:
Health inequality in women
Mel Bartley

It is often assumed that health inequality in women is not as great as it is in men, and for this reason women's health inequality is given less attention in research. There are also a number of technical problems for researchers. One of these is the major responsibility that women take for domestic labour and for the care of children and older people, which has meant that women's working careers are far more interrupted than those of men. This is one reason why, in the past, employment-based measures of the husband's or male partner's social class have been found to influence women's health more strongly than their own. The assumption was made that some co-variate of the male partner's occupational class, such as income or prestige, must be the 'real' reason for the observed relationships.

It is now possible to measure social inequality in at least three different ways: according to income, prestige and employment relationships and conditions. When we do this we see that health inequality in women is at least as great as in men, although the ways in which this is produced may be rather different. Socio-economic position based on employment relations and conditions has less influence in women, particularly in women who are looking after the home and family full time or who are employed part time. General social and material advantage independent of employment is the decisive influence on health behaviour in both men and women, but in women it far outweighs the effects of employment-based social class.

The use of independent measures of household living standards, and of the level of general social and material advantage of the household, therefore allowed us to begin to see the links between socio-economic inequality and health in ways that are more relevant for policy discussion.

Associated references:
Bartley, M., Davey Smith, G. and Blane, D. (1998) 'Beyond the Black Report' Sociology of Health and Illness, 20, 5, 563-577.
Bartley, M., Sacker, A., Firth, D. and Fitzpatrick, R. (1999) R. 'Social position, social roles and women's health in England: changing relationships 1984-1993' Social Science and Medicine, 46, 99-115.
Bartley, M., Sacker, A., Firth, D. and Fitzpatrick, R. (1999). 'Understanding social variation in cardiovascular risk factors in men and women: the advantage of theoretically based measures' Social Science and Medicine, 49, 831-845.
Bartley, M. (1999) 'Measuring women's social position: the importance of theory' Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 53 10, 601-602.
Sacker, A., Firth, D., Fitzpatrick, R. and Bartley, M. (2000) 'Comparing health inequality in men and women: prospective study of mortality 1986-96' British Medical Journal 320, 1303-7.