IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jnlpup/v24y2004i03p275-298_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is Equality Good Medicine? Determinants of Life Expectancy in Industrialized Democracies

Author

Listed:
  • CREPAZ, MARKUS M. L.
  • CREPAZ, NICOLE

Abstract

The association between income inequality which creates psycho-social stress and longevity is of a curvilinear, concave nature. Low levels of income inequality are connected with shorter life expectancy. As inequality increases so does life expectancy until a point is reached where further increases in inequality lead to decreases in life expectancy. This finding is consistent with general theories of the effects of stress on performance as found in the fields of social psychology and sports medicine. In addition, we found that the life expectancy of populations is driven by factors such as perceived political control, the generosity of the welfare state, life-styles, GDP per capita and the poverty rate. Independently of which measure of income inequality was used or which statistical method was applied, these findings remained robust even when a number of alternative explanations were controlled for.

Suggested Citation

  • Crepaz, Markus M. L. & Crepaz, Nicole, 2004. "Is Equality Good Medicine? Determinants of Life Expectancy in Industrialized Democracies," Journal of Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 24(3), pages 275-298, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jnlpup:v:24:y:2004:i:03:p:275-298_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0143814X04000133/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tajul Masron & Mduduzi Biyase & Talent Zwane & Thomas Udimal & Frederich Kirsten, 2023. "Ecological footprint and population health outcomes: an analysis of E7 countries," Economics Working Papers edwrg-07-2023, College of Business and Economics, University of Johannesburg, South Africa, revised 2023.
    2. Jeremy Porter, 2012. "A Simplified Indicator of Social Well-Being in the United States: Examining the Ecological Impact of Family Formation within a County Level Framework," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 108(3), pages 421-440, September.
    3. Mduduzi Biyase & Tajul Ariffin Masron & Talent Zwane & Thomas Bilaliib Udimal & Frederich Kirsten, 2023. "Ecological Footprint and Population Health Outcomes: Evidence from E7 Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-18, May.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:jnlpup:v:24:y:2004:i:03:p:275-298_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/pup .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.