Social mobility and mental health in Canada.

OBJECTIVES

To investigate whether intergenerational mobility in education and income are associated with levels of psychological distress in Canada, a context in which rates of intergenerational mobility are higher than those of the United States but lower than those of Nordic countries.

METHODS

The data came from the Longitudinal and International Study of Adults (LISA) linked to tax records from the Canada Revenue Agency (N = 4100). Diagonal reference models were used to investigate whether educational mobility and income mobility were associated with levels of psychological distress in adulthood as assessed by the Kessler (K-10) scale. The models controlled for sociodemographic characteristics and were stratified by gender.

RESULTS

Although we did not find that mobility in general was associated with greater levels of psychological distress, we found that downward educational mobility in particular corresponded to higher levels of psychological distress (b = 0.15 with 95% CI = 0.00, 0.31) among men.

CONCLUSION

Overall, we found no strong evidence that social mobility in general is impactful for levels of psychological distress, but downward educational mobility in particular may have negative consequences for the mental health of men. In addition, a notable gradient between income and psychological distress in adulthood was observed for both women and men.