Lifespan variation by occupational class Compression or.pdf

Max-Planck-Institut für demografi sche Forschung Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research Konrad-Zuse-Strasse 1 · D-18057 Rostock · GERMANY Tel +49 (0) 3 81 20 81 - 0; Fax +49 (0) 3 81 20 81 - 202; http://www.demogr.mpg.de MPIDR WORKING PAPER WP 2012-010 FEBRUARY 2012 Lifespan variation by occupational class: Compression or stagnation over time? Alyson van Raalte (vanraalte@demogr.mpg.de) Pekka Martikainen Mikko Myrskylä (myrskyla@demogr.mpg.de) © Copyright is held by the authors. Working papers of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research receive only limited review. Views or opinions expressed in working papers are attributable to the authors and do not necessarily refl ect those of the Institute. Lifespan variation by occupational class: Compression or stagnation over time? 1 2 1 Alyson van Raalte , Pekka Martikainen , Mikko Myrskylä 1Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany 2Department of Sociology, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland Abstract Adult lifespan variation in most western countries has stagnated since the 1960s, despite continued improvements in longevity. Cross-sectional analyses, however, find that in the 1990s higher socio-economic position was associated with lower lifespan variation. Trends in this association over time are unknown. We investigated trends in lifespan variation over four decades by occupational social class (manual, lower non-manual, upper non-manual) using Finnish register data (