Health Status and Health Selection Processes in Intra-Generational Mobility When Living in Precarious Prosperity

This presentation looks at the relationship between health and quality of life of people living in precarious prosperity in Romania in the attempt to understand paths and mechanisms through which health status influences other domains of life and overall quality of life. The paper also aims to analyse whether health has a role in social selection, by looking at how health status influences intra-generational mobility of people living in precarious prosperity. The analysis is placed within the theoretical perspective of quality of life which takes into consideration people’s perceptions and evaluations of all important circumstances of life. Moreover, the paper makes use of previous research and theories looking at health selection processes in intra-generational mobility. The data comes from a qualitative study based on in-depth interviews with people living in households in precarious prosperity from two different communities in Romania. Households belong to a precarious prosperity stratum of population which, without being poor, live in the vicinity of poverty and face high material deprivation. The sample consists in a total of 88 households interviewed in two consecutive waves: 50 households in the first wave (2012-2013) and 38 in the second wave (2014-2015). A qualitative content analysis of interviews is carried out. Results show that health status has spill over effects in other domains of life. Also, there is some evidence in favour of social selection theory in health although more research is needed in this respect.