Abstract

In recent years social inequality in health conditions have received increasing attention among public health officials, bio-medical scientists and social researchers, as shown by the numerous empirical studies exploring the pathways that structure social inequality in the population's well-being. This article focuses on two means of social reproduction of inequality: the first, of inter-generational nature, is based on the transmission of resources from the family of origin to that of its children; the second, of intra-generational nature, concerns the life-long capitalisation of cultural and economic resources that affects individuals' psychophysical welfare. Following Blau e Duncan's "status attainment" model (1967), the article attempts to assess the role played by ascriptive and acquisitive features on health inequality, via analysis of data drawn from Istat's 2003 survey on the use of leisure time.