In low and intermediate occupational category (manual workers, office, sales, or service staff, and intermediate (technical) occupations), the women who do not participate in prenatal education are more likely to have cesarean deliveries than those who do participate.
The majority of participants (76%) were married or cohabiting and 60% were categorized as being of intermediate occupational position.
Among men, missing data for occupational exposure were more frequent for farmers (compared with blue collar workers) and less common among those in management and intermediate occupations.
Occupational socioeconomic class was evaluated by questionnaire and was subsequently collapsed into three classes: (1) higher managerial, administrative and professional occupations; (2) intermediate occupations; and (3) routine and manual occupations [ 24].
For example, although education has been used as a proxy of social status, we found that this indicator was not important in our population, perhaps because the women in our study were incorporated into the work force, making exposure to intermediate factors, such as occupational stress and load work, an influence on pregnancy outcomes.
The latter group is sub-grouped according to the average educational level required for any particular occupation, yielding five occupational categories: unskilled manual worker, skilled manual worker, low-level clerk, intermediate level clerk, high level clerk.
In line with the argument of status reproduction we find that chances are higher when parents have an intermediate school certificate and are at occupational qualification level.
Epidemiologic studies will be particularly critical in evaluating the relationship between intermediate biomarkers and cancer risk in occupational groups or in the general population and in investigating genetic susceptibility factors.
Occupational socioeconomic class was categorised as managerial/professional, intermediate or routine/manual based on current or previous occupation.
We used social class to categorise socioeconomic position, based on the Registrar General's occupational classification: I professional; II intermediate; IIIa skilled non-manual; IIIb skilled manual; IV semi-skilled; and V unskilled [ 11, 12].
Sociodemographic covariates included age, sex, SES (based on the last known occupational grade and divided into high, intermediate, and low), and ethnicity (white, South Asian, or other) and were all based on survey responses (22).
