Inequality and mortality: Long-run evidence from a panel of countries

We investigate whether changes in economic inequality affect mortality in rich countries. To answer this question we use a new source of data on income inequality: tax data on the share of pretax income going to the richest 10% of the population in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, the Ne...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of health economics 2007, Vol.26 (1), p.1-24
Main Authors: Leigh, Andrew, Jencks, Christopher
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Developed Countries
Economic inequalities
Health
Health administration
Health economics
Health Services Accessibility
Health status
Homicide
Humans
Income distribution
Income inequality
Inequality
Manslaughter
Manycountries
Mortality
Mortality - trends
Social Class
Studies
Suicide
Suicides & suicide attempts
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Summary:We investigate whether changes in economic inequality affect mortality in rich countries. To answer this question we use a new source of data on income inequality: tax data on the share of pretax income going to the richest 10% of the population in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK, and the US between 1903 and 2003. Although this measure is not a good proxy for inequality within the bottom half of the income distribution, it is a good proxy for changes in the top half of the distribution and for the Gini coefficient. In the absence of country and year fixed effects, the income share of the top decile is negatively related to life expectancy and positively related to infant mortality. However, in our preferred fixed-effects specification these relationships are weak, statistically insignificant, and likely to change their sign. Nor do our data suggest that changes in the income share of the richest 10% affect homicide or suicide rates.
ISSN:0167-6296
1879-1646
DOI:10.1016/j.jhealeco.2006.07.003