Recalibrating the spirit level: An analysis of the interaction of income inequality and poverty and its effect on health

Social Science & Medicine
Simone Rambotti

Abstract

The publication of The Spirit Level (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2009) marked a paramount moment in the analysis of health and inequality, quickly attracting a remarkable degree of attention, both positive and negative, both in academic and in public discourse. Following at least 20 years of research, the book proposes a simple and powerful argument: inequality per se, more specifically income inequality, is harmful to every aspect of social life. In order to confirm this idea, the authors present a series of bivariate, cross-sectional associations showing comparisons across countries and within the United States. Despite the methodological limitations of this approach, the authors advance causal claims concerning the detrimental effects of income inequality. They also rule out poverty as a plausible alternative explanation, without directly measuring it. Meanwhile, over the last decade stratification scholars have demonstrated the nonlinear effect of economic factors, especially income, on health. The results suggest that a relative approach is best for analyzing dynamics at the top of the income distribution, whereas an absolute approach seems most appropriate for studying the bottom of the distribution. Consistent with this persp...Continue Reading

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Citations

Dec 3, 2015·Social Science & Medicine·Simone Rambotti
Feb 21, 2019·Injury Prevention : Journal of the International Society for Child and Adolescent Injury Prevention·Ali Rowhani-RahbarFrederick P Rivara
Feb 9, 2018·Zeitschrift für Gesundheitswissenschaften = Journal of public health·Santiago LagoFrancisco Reyes
Sep 2, 2020·Annual Review of Genetics·Greg Gibson, Kristine A Lacek

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