Abstract:

Numerous studies have shown a strong relationship between health and socio-economic status (SES). However determining which aspect of SES affects health and how much more rapidly health declines for some individuals than others over life cycle are keys to policy debate. In this respect, by using TURKSTAT’s 2010 Survey of Income and Living Conditions (SILC), the contribution of this study to the literature is depicting SES gradient in health over life course by using different aspects of SES for Turkey. Results show that the bottom of SES hierarchy are in much worse health than those at the top and average health among men is better than women. The health gradient exists in all indicators of SES. We observe relatively wide SES gradient in health in middleages and narrowing of it in old ages implying some mixture of cumulative advantage hypothesis and age-as-leveler hypothesis operates through life cycle.

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