Socioeconomic Status

Socioeconomic status (SES) is an economic and sociological combined total measure of a person's work experience and of an individual's or family’s economic and social position in relation to others, based on income, education, and occupation. When analyzing a family’s SES, the household income, earners' education, and occupation are examined, as well as combined income, versus with an individual, when their own attributes are assessed.

Socioeconomic status is typically broken into three categories, high SES, middle SES, and low SES to describe the three areas a family or an individual may fall into. When placing a family or individual into one of these categories any or all of the three variables (income, education, and occupation) can be assessed. Additionally, low income and little education have shown to be strong predictors of a range of physical and mental health problems, ranging from respiratory viruses, arthritis, coronary disease, and schizophrenia. These may be due to environmental conditions in their workplace, or in the case of mental illnesses, may be the entire cause of that persons social predicament to begin with.