 Does income inequality have lasting effects on health and trust?Jesper Jelle Rözer and Beate Volker Social Science & Medicine, 2016, vol. 149, issue C, 37-45 Abstract: According to the income inequality hypothesis, income inequality is associated with poorer health. One important proposed mechanism for this effect is reduced trust. In this study, we argue that income inequality during a person's formative years (i.e., around age 16) may have lasting consequences for trust and health. Multilevel analyses of data from the combined World Values Survey and European Values Study that were collected between 1981 and 2014 support our prediction and show that income inequality is associated with ill health in young adults, in part because it reduces their social trust. The negative consequences of income inequality remain stable for a substantial period of life but eventually fade away and have no effect after age 36. Keywords: Income inequality; Perceived health; Social trust; Period and cohort effects (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:149:y:2016:i:c:p:37-45 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.11.047 Access Statistics for this article Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier |
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