Table 1

Descriptive statistics

MeanSDMinMax
Dependent variables
 ln death rate (total)5.91.363.589.39
 ln death rate (females)5.51.443.069.30
 ln death rate (males)6.21.363.849.65
Key explanatory variables
 Mean achievement of bottom parental quartile40.05.4918.773.1
 Mean achievement of top parental quartile63.75.5134.687.7
 Correlation in socioeconomic status across parental and children’s generation0.320.11−0.640.83
Controls
 Mean children’s social status42.43.7424.552.6
 Mean parental social status40.55.7222.754.8
 Proportion of females52.15.0932.787.7
 Proportion with higher education28.213.80.0071.3
 Mean household income10.70.887.4416.9
 Proportion of unemployed6.065.160.0034.5
 Mean social trust4.800.742.567.99
 Proportion of ethnic minority4.754.110.0030.9
 Proportion religious63.619.610.2100.0
 Proportion married64.915.18.5594.1
 Proportion living in city64.010.522.997.2
 Mean political attitude4.980.492.836.87
 Mean household size2.810.661.294.85
 Proportion of households with children46.425.40.0092.0
 Proportion doing housework21.112.00.0073.6
Further variables of interest
 Mean age50.215.326.482.4
 Year2006.12.832002.02010.0
 Number of individual observations in macro-level observations161.857.79.00323.0
  • Total number of observations is 1200. Mean column reports averages of the means/proportions for year, age group and country combinations. Death rates taken from Eurostat, all other variables taken from ESS. For ESS data, means and SD are computed using population and design weights. ISEI scores are derived using the ISKO Stata package and coding from the ESS-DEVO project.40 Real household incomes are derived by taking the mid-points of the categorical show cards given to participants in the ESS survey. We then convert these values to 2010 EURs. For top values for which no mid-points are available, we make use of a procedure described in previous research.41

  • ESS, European Social Survey; ISEI, International Socio-Economic Index of Occupational Status.