4 - The Spirit Level Flashcards
(7 cards)
Describe the correlation between income inequality and index of health & social problems(Pickett and Wilkinson, 2015).
As income inequality increases in a country, their index of health and social problems also worsen.
How is income inequality measured?
The ratio of incomes amongest the richest 20% compared with the poorest 20% in a coutnry
What data comprises the index of health and social problems?
Life expectancy, mental illness, obesity, infant mortality, teenage births, homicides, imprisonment, education attainment, distrust, social mobility
Describe some of the contextual effects of unequal societies on health.
The neo-material effect - this relates to public spending and resourcing as in unequal societies, services and facilities tend to be lower quality or less accessible in more deprived areas
Structural effects - communities are produced by residential segregation of different sorts of people into different areas
What are the psycho-social effects of unequal societies and how do they influence health?
Position in the status hierarchy affects stress - chronic stress has a number of adverse physical stress & Wilkinson and Pickett argue that psycho-social effects reduce the health of everyone in unequal societies through status-comparison, meaning that anxiety affects the rich as well as the poor. Jen et al. (2010) argue that inequality affects health by eroding trust in a society, reducing bridging social capital
What is the Spirit Level argument?
Wilkinson and Pickett argue that there is little true income effect, that spending on health and social services are also poorly correlated with health & psycho-social effects have the largest effect.
What are some critiques of the Spirit Level argument?
Simplistic methods, ignores material pathways from income to health, does not work for small areas(lack of inequality)/poor countries, people compare themselves to near equals - not those far away from them on a status hierarchy
