SOCIAL-CLASS AND HEALTH - THE PUZZLING COUNTEREXAMPLE OF BRITISH SOUTH ASIANS

British South Asians (with ancestry from the Indian subcontinent) prov ided a puzzling exception to the British class gradient in mortality d uring the 1970s. On the assumption that class gradients in health are produced mainly by gradients in standard of living, this might be due to a break in the relation of class to standard of living (change in c lass structure), or by a break in the relation of standard of living t o patterns of health behaviour and health risk (change in class lifest yles). Data on these characteristics are available from the West of Sc otland Twenty-07 Study, where 159 South Asians aged 30-40 (mean age 35 ) were sampled alongside 319 of the general population in Glasgow. As regards changes in class structure, results indicate that the undercla ss thesis, which suggests that ethnic minorities are forced into less eligible jobs or into a separate labour market or into unemployment, r esulting in a standard of living below that of the general population, still holds good for British South Asians in categories from social c lass III non-manual downwards. It does not hold good for owners of sma ll businesses, where Sikhs and Hindus in particular have a standard of living equivalent to general population counterparts. However, prospe rity is not predictable from levels of education in the subcontinent a nd from this and other signs it appears that a wholesale redistributio n of class chances is occurring among British South Asians, disrupting inter-and intra-generational continuities in the relation between cla ss and standard of living. There is little sign of change in class lif estyles, i.e. in the relation between standard of living and health be haviour or health risk. As yet, though, the new distribution of standa rd of living is affecting patterns of health behaviour and health risk more strongly than symptom experience or chronic illness, suggesting that a class gradient in health will re-emerge. (C) 1998 Elsevier Scie nce Ltd. All rights reserved.