Social Class for Collective Health Research: A Conceptual and Empirical Challenge

Figures & data

Table 1. Description of class position clusters.

Variable	Employee	Independent worker	Retired/rentier	Unskilled worker	Unemployed
n N %	2543 10,156,112 34.39	745 2,714,569 9.22	614 2,447,178 8.31	3875 13,377,180 45.43	263 749,925 2.55
Occupational category	Employee (public and private industry)	-Independent Professional or technician -Small business merchant -Owner of industrial, commercial or service company^1	Retired/Rentier	Worker	Unemployed
Income source	Wage as employee	-Private business / street vending -Honoraria^1	Jubilee pension/Property rental	-Wage as labourer (Most important) -Salary as worker	-Donations / Subsidy / Alms -None
Labour-related tasks	Directs and organises the work of others	Does and directs the work	Outside of the productive process	Does the work	Does the work^3
Possession of means of production	Machinery Nothing	Local Machinery Tools Commodities	Land Nothing	Land Tools	Nothing
Monthly income^2	More than 1 MMW – Two MMW (>$589.501–$1.179.000)^1 More than two MMW – less than 4 MMW (>$1.179.001–<$2.358.000) More than 4 MMW (>$2.358.001^1)	More than 4 MMW (>$2.358.001)	More than 1 MMW – less than four MMW (>$589.501–<$2.358.001)	Less than half MMW - one MMW (<294.750–589.500)	None - Less than half MMW (<$294.750)
Level of education	Technical/Technological University Postgraduate^1	University Postgraduate^1	Primary University	None^1 Primary Does not know/ Not responding^1	None Primary^1

¹These categories characterise conglomerates with a weaker relation than the others.

²These are monthly minimum wage legal values (MMW) for Colombia in 2013.

³This reflects that even if unemployed the person does the main productive activity they describe.

Table 2. Percentage frequency distributions of sociodemographic characteristics and means and standard errors of the oral health indexes by class position.

	Employee	Independent worker	Retired/ rentier	Unskilled worker	Unemployed	Total
n N	2543 10,156,112	745 2,714,569	614 2,447,178	3875 13,377,180	263 749,925	8040 29,444,964
Age group
20–34	46.52	33.91	17.14	39.28	29.88	39.20
35–44	24.13	20.95	5.75	19.84	22.08	20.31
45–64	24.07	38.87	43.47	32.71	29.21	31.10
65–79	5.29	6.26	33.65	8.17	18.73	9.39
Sex
Men	49.23	45.52	45.27	49.63	40.42	48.51
Women	50.77	54.48	54.73	50.37	59.58	51.49
Ethnic group
Indigenous	3.33	5.61	2.31	6.73	1.95	4.97
Black	9.74	10.49	7.19	13.96	9.77	11.52
White	26.59	26.73	31.62	24.63	22.66	26.03
Mixed	46.70	42.68	45.39	39.48	46.25	42.93
Other ethnic groups	2.89	1.74	2.40	2.46	2.87	2.54
Not defined	3.71	8.46	2.62	5.96	5.50	5.13
No sabe	7.04	4.29	8.47	6.78	11.00	6.89
Marital status
Married	26.91	34.40	33.17	23.73	19.27	26.48
Common law	33.53	31.06	12.19	40.98	18.52	34.53
Divorced	0.77	1.02	1.17	0.30	0.15	0.59
Separated	8.24	6.96	9.56	10.34	17.31	9.42
Widowed	3.15	4.42	14.09	2.82	7.13	4.13
Single	27.40	22.14	29.82	21.83	37.63	24.85
Health care affiliation
Contributive	71.23	40.03	60.06	18.40	29.82	42.37
Subsidized	17.34	50.57	15.45	70.54	59.57	45.49
Uninsured	5.75	1.27	16.13	0.78	0.00	3.80
Other regimens	5.69	8.13	8.37	10.28	10.60	8.36
Education level
None	0.95	1.52	3.18	7.75	6.92	4.43
Pre-primary	0.03	0.00	0.00	0.05	0.00	0.03
Primary	12.89	25.52	28.63	42.42	41.76	29.51
Secondary	32.21	38.05	34.51	36.23	39.23	34.94
Technical/technological	20.13	13.53	13.95	8.02	4.56	13.11
University	27.66	14.83	17.80	3.52	5.35	14.12
Postgraduate	5.94	6.55	1.66	0.03	0.22	2.81
Does not know/ Not responding	0.19	0.00	0.29	1.98	1.96	1.04
Area/zone
Urban	88.46	89.10	96.53	64.10	80.77	77.93
Rural	11.54	10.90	3.47	35.90	19.23	22.07
Region
Atlántica	15.99	25.41	15.59	23.70	12.70	20.24
Oriental	13.33	18.26	14.13	19.73	32.68	17.25
Central	26.89	22.37	29.16	24.58	21.31	25.47
Pacífica	15.08	9.75	15.36	20.26	22.86	17.17
Bogotá	27.00	21.29	24.46	8.92	7.75	17.56
Orinoquía-Amazonía	1.71	2.91	1.31	2.82	2.69	2.32
Oral health indexes
DMFT	6.8 (0.34)	6.9 (0.32)	9.1 (0.54)	7.2 (0.25)	8.5 (0.80)	7.2 (0.21)
Care index	56.7 (3.09)	48.1 (4.85)	36.8 (4.50)	30.6 (2.70)	29.0 (5.81)	41.7 (3.40)
Treatment need index	16.1 (2.63)	20.2 (4.51)	20.3 (4.11)	35.5 (3.84)	33.0 (8.97)	26.0 (3.60)

Notes: Percentages were calculated per column for each variable.

Indexes are presented as means. Standard errors are provided in parentheses.

Figure 1. Class position as a proxy for social class.

Table 3. Description of the living conditions clusters.

	1. Urban adequate	2. Urban precarious	3. Rural precarious
n N %	352 1,955,546 4.38	4972 19,404,691 61.84	2716 8,084,727 33.78
Area	Urban	Urban	Rural
Socioeconomic strata	High	Medium	Lower
Monthly household income*	More than four MMW (>$2.358.001)	More than one MMW – Less than three MMW (>$589.501–<$1.768.500)	Less than half MMW – one MMW (<$294.750)’ – $589.500)
Lack of money during the previous week to buy food	Never	Never and almost never	Always
Housing tenure	-Owned outright -Owned with a mortgage	-Owned outright -Rented	-Untitled property -Usufruct
Type of housing	Apartment	Apartment	-Peasant shack -Improvised housing -Urban shack
Number of sleeping rooms in the house	Many	A few	**
Water supply	Piped water with continuous supply	Piped water with continuous supply	-Piped water without continuous supply -Tube well pump -Dug well -Rain water -Surface water (river, spring, etc.)

*Those are minimum legal wage (MMW) values for 2013 in Colombia.

**This is empty because it does not have any importance for this cluster.

Figure 2. Living conditions as a proxy for social class.

Table 4. Distribution of living conditions by class position.

	Employee	Independent worker	Retired/ rentier	Unskilled worker	Unemployed	Total
n N	2543 10,156,112	3875 13,377,180	745 2,714,569	614 2,447,178	263 749,925	8040 29,444,964
Living conditions
Urban ‘adequate’	13.05	9.51	9.18	1.10	0	6.64
Urban precarious	74.98	67.33	76.83	56.49	69.99	65.90
Rural precarious	11.97	23.16	13.99	42.41	30.01	27.46
Total	100.00	100.00	100.00	100.00	100.00	100.00

Figure 3. Average treatment needs index by class position adjusted by age.

Figure 4. Average treatment needs index by living conditions adjusted by age.

Figure 5. Average care index by class position adjusted by age.

Figure 6. Average care index by living conditions adjusted by age.

Figure 7. Final model. Social class (production and social reproduction) and oral health.