The standard social classes have the summary terminology of: I Professional, II Managerial, III Skilled manual and non-manual workers, IV Partly skilled, V Unskilled.
Adult occupational social class was based on the longest-held occupation recorded at study entry (aged 40 59 years) using the Registrar General's occupational classification: I (professionals), II (managerial), III non-manual (semi-skilled non-manual), III manual (semi-skilled manual), IV (partly skilled) and V (unskilled).
The occupational social class of cohort members at 53 years was used as a marker of socioeconomic position, and was classified according to the Registrar General (1980) as either non-manual (managerial, professional, skilled professional ancillaries and service providers) or manual (skilled, non-skilled and agricultural workers).
7 Social class was determined according to the Registrar General's Social Class, and was classified into I/II (professional or managerial); III (skilled non-manual or skilled manual); IV (semi-skilled manual); V (unskilled manual); full time student or never worked.
*I & II Professional && managerial or technical; III: Manual & non-manual; IV & V: Partly & unskilled Amongst those interviewed in the new cohort, 92.3% (634/687) survived four years after interview, compared with 90.9% (626/689) of those interviewed in 1991/2.
a Adjusted for gender and age b Ordered logistic regression *I & II Professional && managerial or technical; III: Manual & non-manual; IV & V: Partly & unskilled There were 897 individuals aged 65 69 years ascertained on the sample date in the base cohort and 971 in 1996/7.
The paternal occupational social class at the time of the child's birth was then obtained as follows: I, professional and assumed the most advantaged, II, managerial, IIIN, skilled non-manual, IIIM, skilled manual, IV, semiskilled and V, unskilled and assumed to be the least advantaged.
29 Information on participant age (years), sex, fruit and vegetable consumption (portions per day), and head of household social class (managerial, technical and professional, skilled non-manual, skilled manual, semi-skilled manual, unskilled manual) were also collected by the survey interviewers.
This last involved a blurring of the distinction between conception and execution or between indirect and direct, nonmanual and manual, and managerial and nonmanagerial work; decentralization of decision making; flatter hierarchies; and broader and overlapping job descriptions and skill profiles.
In the analysis, NS-SEC categories were routine and manual, intermediate, managerial and professional, retired or home carer, sick or disabled and unable to work, long-term unemployed or never worked, in prison and other.
Parental occupation obtained from parents or children was coded using the UK National Statistics Socioeconomic Classification (NS-SEC) for the parent with the highest classification (professional and managerial; intermediate; routine and manual; economically inactive; unclassified) [ 22].
