Health related behaviours such as smoking and
harmful alcohol consumption explain a great
deal of the mortality and morbidity differences
between the socioeconomic groups. The article
seeks to explore why habits that are detrimental
to health accumulate to lower socioeconomic
groups, and why people in these groups seem to
suffer more from these same habits. The existing
explanations for the association can be roughly
divided into two categories, of which the first one
approaches the question from the point of view of
social structures and life circumstances, and the
second one from the point of view of individual
agency. Three theoretical concepts that have been
used to bridge the structure and agency divide are
examined: culture, identity and habitus. The article
elaborates the strengths and weaknesses of the
existing concepts and research, and introduces
promising points of departure for the more agency
oriented approaches for the research on socioeconomic
health differences. It is suggested that
the future research should focus more on how
health and well-being are generated as part of the
people’s life-circumstances and courses of action
as a whole. Health related behaviour is strongly
linked to other everyday habits, and is mostly motivated
by collective aims, such as experiencing
belonging to groups and communities that share
similar values. It is concluded that more research
is especially needed on how adverse health related
habits, social trust and resilience are formed in
the marginalized groups.