Does Relative Deprivation in School During Adolescence Get Under the Skin? A Causal Mediation Analysis from the Life Cou
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Does Relative Deprivation in School During Adolescence Get Under the Skin? A Causal Mediation Analysis from the Life Course Perspective Kiwoong Park1 Accepted: 13 November 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract This study examines that U.S. adolescents’ relative deprivation in school (Deaton index) is associated with physiological health outcomes in young adulthood (aged 24–32) measured as allostatic load (AL). Using Waves 1, 2, and 4 of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) in the U.S., this study finds that adolescents with higher relative deprivation are likely to have poorer physiological health (i.e., higher AL scores) in young adulthood, after appropriately adjusting for individual, familial, and school characteristics. The sensitivity analysis of sequential g-estimation models further increases our confidence in the results by assessing the robustness of the effects. Also, the relationship between students’ relative deprivation and physiological health is stronger in socioeconomically advantaged schools than in disadvantaged schools. From the life course perspective, this study advances our understanding of whether and how stress from social standing gets under the skin and affects the quality of life in the long-term transition from adolescence to adulthood. Keywords Adolescents · Relative deprivation (Deaton index) · Physiological health (allostatic load) · Life-course · Causal mediation analysis
1 Introduction Over the last decade, there has been considerable debate over whether the effect of relative position on health actually exists (Diener et al. 1993; Leigh et al. 2011; Lynch et al. 2004). Some scholars have demonstrated that, even after controlling for individuals’ absolute income, low relative position is associated with poor health as an outcome of the stressor (Firebaugh and Schroeder 2009; Luttmer 2005; Subramanian and Kawachi 2006; Wilkinson and Pickett 2009). However, critics have found null effects or only weak evidence pertaining to relative position in a society after controlling for material resources such as low income (Deaton and Lubotsky 2003; Link et al. 2013). * Kiwoong Park [email protected] 1
Department of Sociology, University of New Mexico, MSC05 3080, 1915 Roma NE Ste. 1103, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA
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These mixed results in previous research may be influenced by a set of substantial and interrelated issues surrounding the roles of socio-spatial and temporal factors. First, as a socio-spatial issue, there is little consensus regarding the social places where people gain their sense of relative position (Lynch et al. 2004; Schnittker and McLeod 2005). Although some studies set reference groups as fellow residents of counties, states, or nations (Wilkinson and Pickett 2009), meaningful reference groups for social comparisons are theoretically considered to be local groups with populations who people know personally and with whom they share important similarities (Merton and Kitt 1950; Messner and Tardiff
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