Perspectives article: income inequality, health, and household welfare

TY - JOUR

T1 - Perspectives article

T2 - income inequality, health, and household welfare

AU - Monheit, Alan C.

N1 - Funding Information: The author is solely responsible for interpretation of material referenced and for the writing of the paper. Publisher Copyright: © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.

PY - 2022/3

Y1 - 2022/3

N2 - The growth in US income inequality since the late 1970s has directed much public policy attention to the macroeconomic and political factors contributing to such growth. In this review, I focus on the microeconomic implications of income inequality for household wellbeing, specifically, on whether income inequality per se has an impact on the health of household members. In doing so I review work that has posited the social and biological pathways through which inequality may affect health, and the empirical approaches and challenges to identifying such causality. I find that despite both theoretical and conceptual arguments that income inequality may affect the health of family members through the family’s relative position in the income distribution, the weight of the empirical evidence does not support such a causal relationship. I conclude with a discussion differentiating the importance of income support for those in the lower percentiles of the income distribution, and efforts to improve the relative economic status of others.

AB - The growth in US income inequality since the late 1970s has directed much public policy attention to the macroeconomic and political factors contributing to such growth. In this review, I focus on the microeconomic implications of income inequality for household wellbeing, specifically, on whether income inequality per se has an impact on the health of household members. In doing so I review work that has posited the social and biological pathways through which inequality may affect health, and the empirical approaches and challenges to identifying such causality. I find that despite both theoretical and conceptual arguments that income inequality may affect the health of family members through the family’s relative position in the income distribution, the weight of the empirical evidence does not support such a causal relationship. I conclude with a discussion differentiating the importance of income support for those in the lower percentiles of the income distribution, and efforts to improve the relative economic status of others.

KW - Causality

KW - Economic status

KW - Health

KW - Income inequality

KW - Public policy

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85116064413&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85116064413&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11150-021-09589-0

DO - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11150-021-09589-0

M3 - Article

SN - 1569-5239

VL - 20

SP - 37

EP - 55

JO - Review of Economics of the Household

JF - Review of Economics of the Household

IS - 1

ER -