| 1. |
- Bihagen, Erik, 1970-, et al.
(författare)
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Class Origin and Elite Position of Men in Business Firms in Sweden, 1993-2007 : The Importance of Education, Cognitive Ability, and Personality
- 2013
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Ingår i: European Sociological Review. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0266-7215 .- 1468-2672. ; 29:5, s. 939-954
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Using Swedish registry data, we study the impact of class origin on becoming part of the business elite between 1993 and 2007 for men aged 35–44 years. The elite is defined as the top 1 per cent of wage earners within large firms. We find a clear working class disadvantage and, with time, a polarization between those of working class origin and others. Decomposition analyses indicate that differences in educational attainment levels cause a large part of the gap, but less so over time. Differences in personality traits measured at around the age of 18 years also help explain the class origin differentials, and more so over time. The decomposition analyses indicate that the net effect of cognitive abilities is small. The results suggest a change in the value of education and personality in the labour market over time, but as men of working class origins have disadvantages in both domains, the relative disadvantage of coming from the working class was rather stable during the period 1993–2007.
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| 2. |
- Bihagen, Erik, et al.
(författare)
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Elite mobility among college graduated men in Sweden : Skills, personality and family ties
- 2017
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Ingår i: Acta Sociologica. - : SAGE Publications. - 0001-6993 .- 1502-3869. ; 60:4, s. 291-308
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Using Swedish registry data, we study the chances of mobility into the Swedish labour market elite for men who graduated in the years 1985-2005. The elite is defined as top earners within mid- and large sized firms and within the public sector organisations (henceforth, we use organisation for both firms and public organisations). Using discrete time event history models, we study the incidence of elite entry in terms of external recruitment and internal promotion. The choice of field of study and of college or university are important, as are personality and, to a limited extent, cognitive ability. What is most striking is that having kin in elite positions increases the chance of elite entry in general, and having parents in top positions in the same organisation increases the likelihood of internal promotion. In sum, elite entry among college-educated males is associated with a diversity of factors, suggesting that complex explanations for labour market success should be considered, where skills, personality, and family ties all seem to matter.
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
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| 5. |
- Bihagen, Erik, 1970-, et al.
(författare)
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Social stratifiering och social klass
- 2012
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Ingår i: Den orättvisa hälsan. - : Liber. - 9789147099757 ; , s. 28-45
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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| 6. |
- Bihagen, Erik, et al.
(författare)
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Social stratifiering och social klass
- 2018. - 2
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Ingår i: Den orättvisa hälsan. - Stockholm : Liber. - 9789147113545 ; , s. 32-49
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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| 7. |
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| 8. |
- Bihagen, Erik, 1970-, et al.
(författare)
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The gender gap in the business elite: stability and change in characteristics of Swedish top wage earners in large private companies, 1993-2007
- 2014
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Ingår i: Acta Sociologica. - : SAGE Publications. - 0001-6993 .- 1502-3869. ; 57:2, s. 119-133
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Using unique Swedish register data on all employees in large private companies, we study trends in the gender composition of top wage employees from 1993 to 2007. The analyses reveal that the likelihood of women holding top wage positions has more than doubled since the early 1990s, but men are still markedly over-represented in this group of employees. We focus on educational choices, considering level and field of study as well as university attended. One important conclusion is that, although education is important in reaching a top wage position, field of education and university attended only marginally explain the gender gap. However, relative to other women, having a career signalling degree (i.e. economics, law or engineering) from a more prestigious university helps women. Dividing the sample into different cohorts indicates that the gender gap is partly a cohort effect, i.e. it is smaller among those born in the 1960s compared to cohorts born in the 1940s and 1950s. It should be noted that there is still a gender gap among employees born in the 1960s and that the gap widens after age 30. Future studies should focus more deeply on this family-related ‘period of divergence’.
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| 9. |
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| 10. |
- Dunlavy, Andrea, 1979-
(författare)
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Between Two Worlds : Studies of migration, work, and health
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis aims to investigate the extent to which work-related factors contribute to the health inequalities often observed between foreign-origin and native-origin persons in Sweden. Four empirical studies using survey data and population-based registers assessed the health impact of different labor market adversities among groups of foreign-origin persons who were both in and outside the labor market relative to native-origin Swedes.Studies I and II examined associations between different measures of working life quality, including adverse psychosocial and physical working conditions and educational mismatch, and self-reported health among the employed. Adverse psychosocial and physical working conditions minimally contributed to the excess risk of poor health found among workers from low- and middle-income countries. Over-education had a stronger association with increased risk of poor health, most notably among foreign-born workers from countries outside of Western Europe. Under-educated women from these countries also demonstrated an elevated risk of poor health. There was no association between educational mismatch and poor health among native-born workers. Studies III and IV focused on the health implications of labor market exclusion, and examined relationships between employment status and risk of all-cause mortality and suicide. The majority of foreign-origin groups that experienced unemployment showed an elevated risk of both mortality and suicide. The magnitude of excess risk varied by generational status and region of origin. Variations in patterns of suicide risk were also evident among migrants by age at arrival and duration of residence. Yet within many foreign-origin groups, health advantages were observed among the employed.The health of migrants is affected by the confluence of several different pre- and post-migration factors. The extent to which health inequalities are found among persons of foreign-origin in Sweden is influenced by the degree to which they experience labor market adversities, as well as differential vulnerability to the negative effects of these adversities across foreign-origin groups.
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| 11. |
- Eriksson, Rickard, 1970-, et al.
(författare)
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Care for Sick Children as a Proxy for Gender Equality in the Family
- 2008
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Swedish parents are entitled to government paid benefits to take care of sick children. In this paper we show that the gender distribution of paid care for sick children is a good proxy for the gender division of household work. Using two examples we show that registry data on care for sick children is a useful data source for studies on gender equality. Our first example shows that increased effort at work by one spouse leads to a lower effort in household work for this spouse, and a higher effort at home for the other spouse. Our second example provides some evidence for a procyclical pattern in gender equality.
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| 12. |
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| 13. |
- Evertsson, Marie, et al.
(författare)
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Dependence Within Families and the Household Division of Labour : A Comparison Between Sweden and the United States
- 2004
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Ingår i: Journal of Marriage and Family. - : National Council of Family Relations. - 0022-2445 .- 1741-3737. ; 66:5, s. 1272-1286
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article assesses the relative explanatoryvalue of the resource-bargaining perspectiveand the doing-gender approach for the divisionof housework in the United States and Swedenfrom the mid-1970s to 2000. The data used arethe Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID)and the Swedish Level of Living Survey. Overallresults show that housework was truly genderedwork in both countries during the entire period.Even so, the results indicate that, unlike Swedishwomen, U.S. women seem to increase theirtime spent in housework when their husbandsare to some extent economically dependent onthem, as if to neutralize the presumed genderdeviance on the part of their spouses.
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| 14. |
- Evertsson, Marie, 1969-, et al.
(författare)
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Economic Inequality and Housework
- 2010
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Ingår i: Dividing the Domestic.. - : Stanford University Press. - 9780804763578 ; , s. 105-122
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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| 15. |
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| 16. |
- Gisselmann, Marit, 1792-
(författare)
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The first injustice : Socio-economic inequalities in birth outcome
- 2007
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Adverse birth outcomes like preterm birth and infant mortality are unevenly distributed across socio-economic groups. Risks are usually lowest in groups with high socio-economic status and increase with decreasing status.The general aim of this thesis was to contribute to the understanding of the relation between socio-economic status and birth outcomes, focussing on maternal education and class, studying a range of birth outcomes. More specific aims were to investigate the relation between maternal education and infant health, to study the combined influence of maternal childhood and adult social class on inequalities in infant health and to explore the contribution of maternal working conditions to class inequalities in birth outcomes. The studies are population based, focussing on singletons births 1973-1990. During the period under study, educational differences in birth outcomes increased, especially between those with the lowest and highest education. The low birth weight paradox emerged, suggesting that the distribution of determinants for low birthweight infants differs for these groups.Further, an independent association was found between maternal childhood social class and low birthweight and neonatal mortality, but not for postneonatal mortality. Since this was found for the two outcomes closest to birth, this indicates that the association is mediated through the maternal body.Finally, there is a contribution of maternal working conditions to class inequalities in birth outcome. Lower job control, higher job hazards and higher physical demands were all to some degree related to increased risk of the following adverse birth outcomes: infant mortality, low birthweight, very low birthweight, foetal growth, preterm birth, very and extremely preterm birth. Working conditions demonstrated disparate associations with the birth outcomes, indicating a high complexity in these relationships.
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| 17. |
- Gupta, Sanjiv, et al.
(författare)
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The Economic Gap Among Women in Time Spent on Housework in Former West Germany and Sweden
- 2015
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Ingår i: Journal of Comparative Family Studies. - : University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress). - 0047-2328 .- 1929-9850. ; 46:2, s. 181-201
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The quantitative scholarship on domestic labor has documented the existence of a gender gap in its performance in all countries for which data are available. Only recently have researchers begun to analyze economic disparities among women in their time spent doing housework, and their studies have been largely limited to the U.S. We extend this line of inquiry using data from two European countries, the former West Germany and Sweden. We estimate the economic gap in women's housework time, which we define as the difference between the time spent by women at the lowest and highest deciles of their own earnings. We expect this gap to be smaller in Sweden given its celebrated success at reducing both gender and income inequality. Though Swedish women do spend less time on domestic labor, however, and though there is indeed less earnings inequality among them, the economic gap in their housework is only a little smaller than among women in the former West Germany. In both places, a significant negative association between women's individual earnings and their housework time translates into economic gaps of more than 2.5 hours per week. Moreover, in both countries, women at the highest earnings decile experience a gender gap in housework that is smaller by about 4 hours per week compared to their counterparts at the lowest decile.
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| 18. |
- Halldén, Karin, 1977-
(författare)
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What's Sex Got to Do with It? Women and Men in European Labour Markets
- 2011
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of four empirical studies on women and men in European labour markets. Study I examines effects of the sex of the immediate supervisor on the time men and women spend in initial on-the-job training (OJT) in Sweden. The results show that men receive longer initial OJT than women do, but men’s time in training is independent of the supervisor’s sex. For women in the private sector, the chances of receiving long initial OJT are higher if the immediate supervisor is a man. Study II analyses effects of labour market institutions on the quality of part-time work by comparing the skills and autonomy of female part-time jobs in Britain and Sweden. The results show that female part-time employees in Sweden hold positions of higher skill and have more autonomy compared to their equivalents in Britain. Both British and Swedish part-time employees face relative disadvantages when compared to female full-time workers. Study III examines associations between maternal employment policies and wage penalties for mothers by skill in 10 European countries. The results indicate that, net of variation in female labour force participation, extensive publicly funded childcare is associated with a modest decrease in the motherhood wage penalty, regardless of skill. By contrast, paid maternity leave is weakly associated with a larger motherhood wage gap in less skilled jobs only. Study IV examines the extent to which women’s opportunities to attain positions of high workplace authority are related to maternal employment policies, such as paid parental leave and part-time work. Based on data from 25 European countries, the results show that a high proportion of women working long part-time hours is associated with a wider gender gap in the attainment of high authority positions, to the disadvantage of women. However, paid parental leave appears to be unrelated to the gender authority gap.
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| 19. |
- Kjellsson, Sara, 1975-
(författare)
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Sick of Work? : Questions of Class, Gender and Self-Rated Health
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis examines two aspects of social inequalities in health with three empirical studies that are based on the Swedish Level of Living survey (LNU): The relationship between accumulated occupational class positions during adulthood and health and the class-specific nature of gender differences in health. Previous research continuously finds that there are health differences by class and gender, but less is known about the extent to which accumulated class experiences in adulthood are related to health or how gender differences vary by class. The overall conclusion in this thesis is that occupational class experiences matters for health, both as historical and current experiences. Furthermore, the results highlight the importance of taking class into consideration when examining health differences between men and women, as the mechanisms that underlie the gender gaps in health are not necessarily the same for all classes. The studies can be outlined as:Study I: Class differences in working conditions is a mechanism that underlies class inequalities in health. The working class is generally more exposed to adverse working environments than non-manual employees, and when the wear and tear of these conditions accumulate over time, the length of this exposure may contribute to class inequalities in health. Thereby, accumulated time in the working class is studied as a partial explanation for class differences in health. The results suggest that the duration of time in the working class is related to a higher probability of less than good self-rated general health (SRH), given current class position. This association was also found among individuals who were no longer in working class positions and thus show that duration of experience matters, both as current and past experience.Study II: The study addresses the research gap of class-specificity in gender health inequality and seeks to further disentangle class and gender by studying gender gaps separately by class. The results show that there are class-specific gender gaps for both SRH and musculoskeletal pain, while the gender gap in psychiatric distress appears to be more general across class. Working conditions do not explain the between-class differences in gender gaps but contribute to specific gender differences in health within classes.Study III: The labour market has changed over time and has “upgraded” the class structure while at the same time the share of women in paid employment has increased. Therefore, female health may be increasingly influenced by occupational factors, such as working conditions. This study explores the class-specific nature of gender differences and investigates musculoskeletal pain and working conditions among employed men and women within classes during a time-period that spanned more than 30 years. There were class-specific gender gaps in health throughout the period. The gender gap has increased more, and is wider, among non-manual employees compared to the working classes. This development could not be explained by changes in working conditions.
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| 20. |
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| 21. |
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| 22. |
- Magnusson, Charlotta, 1978-, et al.
(författare)
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Familjeansvar och könslöneskillnader
- 2014
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Ingår i: Lönsamt arbete. - Stockholm : Fritzes. - 9789138241080 ; , s. 227-255
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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| 23. |
- Magnusson, Charlotta, et al.
(författare)
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From childhood to young adulthood : the importance of self-esteem during childhood for occupational achievements among young men and women
- 2018
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Ingår i: Journal of Youth Studies. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1367-6261 .- 1469-9680. ; 21:10, s. 1392-1410
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study investigates the impact of self-esteem during childhood on men’s and women’s occupational prestige in young adulthood. By combining first-hand information from parents in the Swedish Level-of-Living surveys (LNU) 2000 and their children in the Child-LNU in 2000 and the follow-up study in LNU-2010, we are able to assess how self-esteem during adolescence is related to occupational prestige in adulthood. Multivariate analyses were used to determine whether associations between self-esteem (global and domain-specific) in childhood (aged 10–18 years) and occupational prestige in young adulthood (aged 20–28) exist and, if so, what the magnitudes of these associations are for each respective gender.For women, there is a positive association between confidence in mathematics and prestige, even when accounting for actual math grades. Global self-esteem is positively related to later occupational prestige as well. For men, self-esteem is unrelated to occupational prestige. Only actual performance in mathematics is important for men’s occupational achievements.These results indicate the importance of taking gender differences into account when investigating how self-esteem is related to outcomes in young adulthood. A possible implication is the importance of focusing on the development of self-esteem among children, particularly girls, in school.
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| 24. |
- Magnusson, Charlotta, et al.
(författare)
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Gender, Parenthood and Wage Differences : The Importance of Time-Consuming Job Characteristics
- 2017
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Ingår i: Social Indicators Research. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0303-8300 .- 1573-0921. ; 131:2, s. 797-816
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Using data from the Swedish Level of Living Survey (2000, 2010), we investigate how the gender wage gap varies with occupational prestige and family status and also examine the extent to which this gap is explained by time-consuming working conditions. In addition, we investigate whether there is an association between parenthood, job characteristics and wage (as differentiated by gender). The analyses indicate that there are gender differences regarding prestige-based pay-offs among parents that are partly explained by fathers' greater access to employment characterized by time-consuming conditions. Separate analyses for men and women demonstrate the presence of a marriage wage premium for both genders, although only men have a parenthood wage premium. This fatherhood premium is however only present in high-prestigious occupations. Compared with childless men, fathers are also more advantaged in terms of access to jobs with time-consuming working conditions, but the wage gap between fathers and childless men is not explained by differences in access to such working conditions.
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| 25. |
- Nermo, Magnus, 1965-, et al.
(författare)
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Care for Sick Children as a Proxy for Gender Equality in the Family
- 2010
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Ingår i: Social Indicators Research. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0303-8300 .- 1573-0921. ; 97:3, s. 341-356
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Swedish parents are entitled to government paid benefits to take care of sick children. In this paper we show that the gender distribution of paid care for sick children is a good proxy for the gender division of household work. Using two examples we show that registry data on care for sick children is a useful data source for studies on gender equality in the family. Our first example shows that increased effort at work leads to a lower effort in household work, and a higher effort at home for the other spouse. Our second example provides some evidence for a pro-cyclical pattern in gender equality.
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| 26. |
- Nermo, Magnus
(författare)
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Hundra år av könssegregering på den svenska arbetsmarknaden
- 2000
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Ingår i: Sociologisk forskning. - : Sveriges Sociologförbund. - 0038-0342 .- 2002-066X. ; 37:2, s. 35-65
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A hundred years of sex segregation in the Swedish labour marketWomen have composed a substantial part of the Swedish labour force throughout the 20th century. This article provides a brief outline of some debates and processes that directly or indirectly affected women’s labour force participation and the sexual division of labour in non-agricultural work during the 20th century. The overall purpose is to study trends in horizontal and vertical segregation by sex in the Swedish labour market between 1890 and 1990 using log-linear modelling. The results indicate that the level of horizontal segregation by sex increased the first decades of the 20th century, which to some extent contradicts earlier assertions that the level of sex segregation decreased as women entered new branches during the first decades of the 20th century. Nevertheless, the Swedish labour market is less markedly structured by sex in 1990 than it was in 1890. The trend in vertical sex segregation follows a slightly different pattern. The association between sex and class decreased rapidly during the first decades ofthe 20th century. It then remained unchanged for a long time, but was in 1990 much lower than in the beginning of the century.
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| 27. |
- Nermo, Magnus
(författare)
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Structured by gender : patterns of sex segregation in the Swedish labour market : historical and cross-national comparisons
- 1999
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The main purpose of this thesis is to study changes in the level of sex segregation in the Swedish labour market during the 20th century.The thesis includes four empirical chapters. Chapter 2 studies trends in sex segregation by industry and market position in the Swedish labour market between 1890 and 1990. The analyses demonstrate that the Swedish labour market has in overall terms become relatively less sex segregated, both by industry and by market position, since the turn of the century. Chapter 3 focuses on changes in the level of sex segregation in the Swedish labour market since the late 1960s. However, unlike the previous chapter, the data used here is on a more detailed occupational level.Chapter 4 focuses, unlike the above chapters, on the supply side of female labour force participation and allocation. The aim is to examine why young women end up in male-dominated or sex-integrated occupations rather than female-dominated ones with regard to their upbringing, their educational attainment, and family responsibility.Chapter 5 is a comparative analysis of cross-national variation in sex segregation. The results indicate that, given differences in sex composition and occupational structure, the countries studied here produce fairly similar segregation profiles that are markedly structured by gender. The thesis is concluded by a discussion of how to interpret the principal findings in terms of stability or change over time, as well as in terms of similarity and variability between countries
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| 28. |
- Shahbazian, Roujman, 1982-
(författare)
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Sibling Configuration and Adulthood Outcomes : The Case of Two-Child Families
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis includes three empirical studies, analyzing how sibling configuration (i.e. birth order, birth spacing and sex-composition) influences siblings’ long-run income and educational choice. This is done by utilizing the unique linkage opportunities of administrative registers covering the entire population of Sweden.Study I: This paper focuses on how different birth spacing intervals are associated with income rank from ages 33 to 42 years, for siblings in two-child families. The results show clear differences between first- and second-born siblings. At the more common spacing intervals (less than 5 years), spacing has a negligible association to second-born children’s long-term income rank. However, first-born children have lower income rank when a younger sibling is born when they are very young. Having relatively high spacing intervals (over 5 years) is associated with somewhat lower long-term income-rank than having mid-length intervals for both first- and second-born siblings.Study II: This study focuses on the association between combinations of sibling configuration (i.e. birth order, birth spacing and sex composition) and long-run income rank of siblings. The results show that the significance of different family factors in two-child families vary by sibling sex-composition. The findings suggest that both birth order and birth spacing are important factors for first born boys independent of the younger sibling’s sex. First-born girls, however, only have an advantage if they have a younger sister. More surprisingly is that this advantage does not seem to vary by birth spacing.Study III: This study examines how sibling gender configuration in Swedish two-child families influences the choice of so-called STEM educational fields (i.e. Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). The results show that younger siblings, net of parental characteristics, are more likely to choose a STEM field if their older sibling already has attended a STEM program. The findings indicate that boys’ choice of STEM fields is independent of having an older brother or sister who has attended a STEM program. However, girls seem to be more likely to choose a STEM-field if they have a sister who has attended a STEM program, than if they have a brother with a similar program. Given that STEM-fields are markedly male dominated, this indicate the importance of having a same-sex role model for making gender atypical educational choices.
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| 29. |
- Wells, Laura, et al.
(författare)
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Physical Inactivity From Adolescence to Young Adulthood : The Relevance of Various Dimensions of Inequality in a Swedish Longitudinal Sample
- 2017
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Ingår i: Health Education & Behavior. - : SAGE Publications. - 1090-1981 .- 1552-6127. ; 44:3, s. 376-384
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- As physical inactivity may track from adolescence to adulthood, it is important to identify social determinants of physical inactivity in early life. However, most studies have measured socioeconomic position as one dimension. We examine whether multiple dimensions of socioeconomic position, in addition to other dimensions of inequality (i.e., gender, immigrant background), associate with physical inactivity at two time points in youth. Longitudinal data were drawn from the Swedish Level of Living Survey (N = 765) and analysed by gender-stratified logistic regression. Among girls, low parental social class (odds ratio [OR] = 2.63, 95% confidence interval [CI; 1.28, 5.42]) and income (OR = 2.28, 95% [CI 1.12, 4.65]) were associated with physical inactivity, while immigrant background (OR = 2.33, 95% CI [1.03, 5.23]) and a low level of parental education (OR = 3.38, 95% CI [1.15, 9.95]) predicted physical inactivity among women. Among boys, low parental income (OR = 3.27, 95% CI [1.39, 7.69]) was associated with physical inactivity, whereas immigrant background (OR = 2.29, 95% CI [1.04, 5.03]) predicted physical inactivity among men. Our results suggest that physical inactivity is socially patterned, but different dimensions of social stratification should not be considered interchangeable as they may operate independently, through intersection with gender, and at different time points in youth in increasing the risk of physical inactivity.
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| 30. |
- Wells, Laura, 1987-
(författare)
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Socially structured health behaviors : Studies of social inequality in adolescent and young adult physical activity, alcohol consumption, and smoking in Sweden
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Health behaviors contribute to the Swedish national disease burden and to social inequalities in health. This thesis aims to increase our knowledge of whether, when, and how health behaviors become socially structured during early life in Sweden. The thesis contains four empirical studies that together examine how dimensions of childhood socioeconomic position associate with adolescent and young adult health behaviors using Swedish Level-of-Living survey data.Study I examined how different dimensions of social stratification (i.e., parental education, social class, income, immigration background) associate with adolescent and young adult physical inactivity. Analyses showed that physical inactivity in adolescence tracked to young adulthood; however, prior inactivity did not fully explain social differences in young adult physical inactivity. Physical inactivity was socially patterned, but different dimensions of social stratification should not be considered interchangeable as they may operate independently, through intersection with gender, and at different time points in youth in increasing the risk of physical inactivity.Study II examined how parental education associates with two often-conflated drinking patterns in young adulthood. It also examined whether this association could be explained by parental drinking patterns or young adult educational attainment. The results show that parental education constitutes an early-life structural position that confers differential risk for young adult drinking patterns: Young adults with lower educated parents were less likely to drink frequently but were more likely to drink heavily per occasion, a drinking pattern that may place more disadvantaged young adults at a greater health risk. Study III assessed how different measures of education in early life associate with smoking behavior in young adulthood. Analyses showed that young adults with lower educated parents were more likely to have started smoking and were less likely to have quit smoking. School performance in adolescence was associated with smoking initiation and cessation, and school performance explained differences in initiation by parental education. Results suggest that adolescent school performance (which in part connects adolescents’ socioeconomic position of origin with their destination) may play an important role in how educational disparities in smoking are formed.Study IV examined whether young adults’ sense of coherence explains educational differences in their health lifestyles. Education (parental and young adult) was positively associated with sense of coherence and with having a health-promoting lifestyle. Sense of coherence was also positively associated with having a health-promoting lifestyle. However, young adults’ sense of coherence did not explain educational differences in their health lifestyles.This thesis shows that health behaviors are socially patterned in adolescence and young adulthood in Sweden. However, for the most part, examined inter- and intra-generational pathways did not explain associations between childhood socioeconomic position and young adult health behaviors. Instead, the studies point to multiple relevant early life structural and behavioral factors. This highlights the importance of reducing childhood social inequalities, as early life social inequalities may affect early life behavioral inequalities, which have consequences for health and health equity in a life course perspective.
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