Higher SEP during childhood and greater educational attainment are both associated with cognitive function in adulthood, with mothers and fathers each contributing to their offspring's formative cognitive development and later life cognitive ability (albeit in different ways). Improvements in both parental socioeconomic circumstances and the educational attainment of their offspring could possibly enhance cognitive function and decrease risk of dementia later in life.

Socioeconomic conditions across all stages of the lifecourse appear to make unique contributions to cognitive function in late middle age. These results also suggest that in terms of cognitive function, origin is not necessarily destiny, as disadvantaged socioeconomic circumstances in childhood may be overcome to some extent by upward mobility later in life.

The mortality burden in the Australian population attributable to socioeconomic inequality is large, and has profound and far-reaching implications in terms of the unnecessary loss of life, the loss of potentially economically productive members of society, and increased costs for the health care system.

No abstract

Consistent with international evidence, the findings of Australian research show that socioeconomically disadvantaged groups experience significantly higher mortality and morbidity rates. Despite marked improvements in the health of all segments of the Australian population in recent decades, during this same period there has also been an increase in socioeconomically related mortality inequalities for some conditions. Socioeconomically disadvantaged groups are more likely to engage in health‐damaging behaviours, experience poorer psychosocial health, make less use of the healthcare system for preventive purposes, and have a more adverse risk factor profile. These are the main contributing factors to the poorer physiological health of low socioeconomic groups. At present, our knowledge of how socioeconomic status and health are related is limited. A necessary step in improving our understanding of this issue is to draw together all the empirical evidence and use it as the basis for developing a theory of socioeconomic health inequalities. We present a conceptual framework to facilitate this process.