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I hope it will not sound overly dismissive, because it is not intended as such. Does anyone find socioeconomic status ( SES ) so broad a label that it is almost

I hope it will not sound overly dismissive, because it is not intended as such. Does anyone find socioeconomic status ( SES ) so broad a label that it is almost useless catch all category for whatever data you actually want to capture? Even the abstract basically makes very generic: "Much of a child’s environment is captured by socioeconomic status (SES), a summary measure usually comprised of household income, parental education, and neighborhood quality" Am I completely misunderstanding how it is used?

082349872349872 4y ago
(a) considering maps out, it's obviously not "almost useless" because it generally has high predictive ability for various outcomes. (b) considering maps in, it's not "catch all" because in the US context, Zip+4 generally suffices to predict household income, parental education, and (obviously) neighbourhood quality. (I suspect it's spelled SES because the US is unwilling to admit that they are not all middle-class)
europeanguy 4y ago
You can see what wikipedia says about it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socioeconomic_status https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socioeconomic_status Personally, whenever I read "socioeconomic status" I mentally replace with "how much money they got". (Yes, I know, socioeconomic status includes assets other than money, But money can easily be converted to a lot of things. That's why people like it.)
- mattnewton 4y ago
  I think in other countries it would be called “class” which encompasses those other advantages like family names or titles, but in the US “money” is probably good enough most of the time, and we tend to even convert those other assets to approximate dollar values for a nice tidy “net worth” figure.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> Does anyone find socioeconomic status ( SES ) so broad a label that it is almost useless catch all category for whatever data you actually want to capture? Its true that SES is operationalized somewhat differently in different studies, so that conclusions about it one study may not transfer directly to what is studied under that name in another study. The operationalization here (and this is not uncommon) is, additionally, using summary measure is itself somewhat obfuscatory unless the summary measure captures a complex relationship distinct from the individual contributions of the components, which does not clearly seem to be the case here. I wouldn’t say that SES is useless, but I would say that it seems to have no utility here separate from studying the individual components of that are used in operationalizing it.
wjnc 4y ago
Another point is that SES has been available as granular data for a lot longer than micro data regarding what are probably (?) drivers of SES. (I once graduated on micro data.) You’d want micro data on health, education, social relations and jobs in order to bring understanding to a new level. Those as time series are only now beginning to take form.

082349872349872 4y ago

(a) considering maps out, it's obviously not "almost useless" because it generally has high predictive ability for various outcomes. (b) considering maps in, it's not "catch all" because in the US context, Zip+4 generally suffices to predict household income, parental education, and (obviously) neighbourhood quality. (I suspect it's spelled SES because the US is unwilling to admit that they are not all middle-class)

europeanguy 4y ago

You can see what wikipedia says about it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socioeconomic_status https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socioeconomic_status Personally, whenever I read "socioeconomic status" I mentally replace with "how much money they got". (Yes, I know, socioeconomic status includes assets other than money, But money can easily be converted to a lot of things. That's why people like it.)

mattnewton 4y ago
I think in other countries it would be called “class” which encompasses those other advantages like family names or titles, but in the US “money” is probably good enough most of the time, and we tend to even convert those other assets to approximate dollar values for a nice tidy “net worth” figure.

dragonwriter 4y ago

> Does anyone find socioeconomic status ( SES ) so broad a label that it is almost useless catch all category for whatever data you actually want to capture? Its true that SES is operationalized somewhat differently in different studies, so that conclusions about it one study may not transfer directly to what is studied under that name in another study. The operationalization here (and this is not uncommon) is, additionally, using summary measure is itself somewhat obfuscatory unless the summary measure captures a complex relationship distinct from the individual contributions of the components, which does not clearly seem to be the case here. I wouldn’t say that SES is useless, but I would say that it seems to have no utility here separate from studying the individual components of that are used in operationalizing it.

wjnc 4y ago

Another point is that SES has been available as granular data for a lot longer than micro data regarding what are probably (?) drivers of SES. (I once graduated on micro data.) You’d want micro data on health, education, social relations and jobs in order to bring understanding to a new level. Those as time series are only now beginning to take form.