From developing to developed: Mechanisms of health inequalities among seniors in China and Japan under macro-field control

Abstract

The behavioral characteristics, health statuses, and survival times of seniors in China and Japan using the fixed cohort method and constructed relationship models among capital, habitus, and health based on Pierre Bourdieu’s social theory of practice. It was first found that capital, habitus, and health have a capital-based triangle generative structural relationship. Second, basic sources of health inequalities include the direct effect of capital and the indirect effect of capital through habitus, i.e., class habitus controlled by capital has class attributes and is also one of the sources of health inequalities. Third, time-space conversion of the field is not just the change in the total amount or composition of an individual’s capital but also includes the development and improvement of the macro-social environment, causing altered intensities of the impacts of capital and habitus on health. Fourth, the macro-social structures of developing countries significantly differ. The direct effect of capital on health is far greater than the indirect effect of capital on health through habitus, and health inequalities are mainly derived from the direct role of capital. Fifth, with socioeconomic development and improvements in social welfare systems, health inequalities have been generally reduced but have not been eliminated, and the mechanism of health inequalities in developed countries has gradually shifted from the direct effect of capital to class habitus.