IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/iuiwop/0899.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Income Inequality and Individual Health: Exploring the Association in a Developing Country

Author

Listed:

Abstract

We use individual and multi-level data from Zambia on child nutritional health to test the absolute income hypothesis (AIH), the relative income hypothesis (RIH) and the income inequality hypothesis (IIH). The results confirm a non-linear positive relation between economic resources and health, confirming the AIH. For the RIH we find sensitivity to what reference group is used. Most interestingly, while the IIH predicts that income inequality, independent from individual income, will affect health negatively, we find higher income inequality to robustly associate with better child health. The results suggest that the relationship between inequality and health in developing contexts might be very different from the predominant view in the existing literature mainly based on developed countries, and that alternative mechanisms might mediate the relationship in poor countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Nilsson, Therese & Bergh, Andreas, 2012. "Income Inequality and Individual Health: Exploring the Association in a Developing Country," Working Paper Series 899, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:0899
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ifn.se/wfiles/wp/wp899.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ulf-G. Gerdtham & Magnus Johannesson, 2004. "Absolute Income, Relative Income, Income Inequality, and Mortality," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 39(1).
    2. Stephen Knack & Philip Keefer, 1997. "Does Social Capital Have an Economic Payoff? A Cross-Country Investigation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1251-1288.
    3. Miller, Douglas L. & Paxson, Christina, 2006. "Relative income, race, and mortality," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 979-1003, September.
    4. Li, Hongbin & Zhu, Yi, 2006. "Income, income inequality, and health: Evidence from China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 668-693, December.
    5. Ettner, Susan L., 1996. "New evidence on the relationship between income and health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 67-85, February.
    6. Duncan Thomas, 1994. "Like Father, like Son; Like Mother, like Daughter: Parental Resources and Child Height," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 29(4), pages 950-988.
    7. Leigh, Andrew & Jencks, Christopher, 2007. "Inequality and mortality: Long-run evidence from a panel of countries," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 1-24, January.
    8. Behrman, Jere R., 1988. "Nutrition, health, birth order and seasonality : Intrahousehold allocation among children in rural India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 43-62, February.
    9. Wilkinson, R.G., 1992. "National mortality rates: The impact of inequality?," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 82(8), pages 1082-1084.
    10. Lawson, David, 2004. "Determinants of Health Seeking Behaviour in Uganda - Is It Just Income and User Fees That Are Important?," Development Economics and Public Policy Working Papers 30553, University of Manchester, Institute for Development Policy and Management (IDPM).
    11. Karlsson, Martin & Nilsson, Therese & Lyttkens, Carl Hampus & Leeson, George, 2010. "Income inequality and health: Importance of a cross-country perspective," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(6), pages 875-885, March.
    12. Grossman, Michael, 2000. "The human capital model," Handbook of Health Economics, in: A. J. Culyer & J. P. Newhouse (ed.), Handbook of Health Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 7, pages 347-408, Elsevier.
    13. World Bank, 2008. "World Development Indicators 2008," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 11855, December.
    14. M. C. Jones, 2004. "Components of Variance," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 167(1), pages 186-187, February.
    15. Duncan Thomas & John Strauss & Maria-Helena Henriques, 1991. "How Does Mother's Education Affect Child Height?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 26(2), pages 183-211.
    16. Behrman, Jere R & Pollak, Robert A & Taubman, Paul, 1986. "Do Parents Favor Boys?," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 27(1), pages 33-54, February.
    17. World Bank, 2003. "World Development Indicators 2003," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 13920, December.
    18. World Bank, 2008. "World Development Indicators 2008," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 28241, December.
    19. Lochner, K. & Pamuk, E. & Makuc, D. & Kennedy, B.P. & Kawachi, I., 2001. "State-level income inequality and individual mortality risk: A prospective, multilevel study," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 91(3), pages 385-391.
    20. Behrman, Jere R. & Deolalikar, Anil B., 1988. "Health and nutrition," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Hollis Chenery & T.N. Srinivasan (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 14, pages 631-711, Elsevier.
    21. Kawachi, Ichiro & Kennedy, Bruce P., 1997. "The relationship of income inequality to mortality: Does the choice of indicator matter?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 45(7), pages 1121-1127, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Owen O'Donnell & Eddy Van Doorslaer & Tom Van Ourti, 2013. "Health and Inequality," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 13-170/V, Tinbergen Institute.
    2. Grönqvist, Hans & Johansson, Per & Niknami, Susan, 2012. "Income inequality and health: Lessons from a refugee residential assignment program," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 617-629.
    3. Catharina Hjortsberg, 2003. "Why do the sick not utilise health care? The case of Zambia," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(9), pages 755-770, September.
    4. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2859-2939 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Mary C. Daly & Daniel J. Wilson, 2013. "Inequality and Mortality: New Evidence from U.S. County Panel Data," Working Paper Series 2013-13, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    6. Karlsson, Martin & Nilsson, Therese & Lyttkens, Carl Hampus & Leeson, George, 2010. "Income inequality and health: Importance of a cross-country perspective," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(6), pages 875-885, March.
    7. Ken Judge & Iain Paterson, 2001. "Poverty, Income Inequality and Health," Treasury Working Paper Series 01/29, New Zealand Treasury.
    8. Skoufias, Emmanuel, 1998. "Determinants of child health during the economic transition in Romania," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 26(11), pages 2045-2056, November.
    9. Bergh, Andreas & Nilsson, Therese, 2010. "Good for Living? On the Relationship between Globalization and Life Expectancy," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(9), pages 1191-1203, September.
    10. Deniz Karaoğlan & Dürdane Şirin Saraçoğlu, 2018. "Socio-Economic Factors Affecting Early Childhood Health: the Case of Turkey," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 11(3), pages 1051-1075, June.
    11. Herzer, Dierk & Nunnenkamp, Peter, 2015. "Income inequality and health: Evidence from developed and developing countries," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 9, pages 1-56.
    12. Franck, Raphaã‹L & Rainer, Ilia, 2012. "Does the Leader's Ethnicity Matter? Ethnic Favoritism, Education, and Health in Sub-Saharan Africa," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 106(2), pages 294-325, May.
    13. Jere R. Behrman, 1994. "Intra-family Distribution in Developing Countries," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 33(3), pages 253-296.
    14. Headey, Derek & Hoddinott, John & Ali, Disha & Tesfaye, Roman & Dereje, Mekdim, 2015. "The Other Asian Enigma: Explaining the Rapid Reduction of Undernutrition in Bangladesh," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 749-761.
    15. Angus Deaton, 2003. "Health, Inequality, and Economic Development," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(1), pages 113-158, March.
    16. Fagerberg, Jan & Srholec, Martin & Verspagen, Bart, 2010. "Innovation and Economic Development," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 833-872, Elsevier.
    17. Behrman, Jere R. & Skoufias, Emmanuel, 2004. "Correlates and determinants of child anthropometrics in Latin America: background and overview of the symposium," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 335-351, December.
    18. Petri Böckerman, 2013. "Top Income Shares and Mortality: Evidence from Advanced Countries," Journal of Income Distribution, Ad libros publications inc., vol. 22(1), pages 57-69, March.
    19. Loree, Jacob, 2015. "State Level Income Inequality and Individual Self-Reported Health Status: Evidence from the United States," MPRA Paper 72638, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Thomas, Duncan & Lavy, Victor & Strauss, John, 1996. "Public policy and anthropometric outcomes in the Cote d'Ivoire," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 155-192, August.
    21. Kaushik Basu, 2016. "Beyond the Invisible Hand: Groundwork for a New Economics," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9299.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Health; Economic inequality; Zambia;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • O10 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - General

    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:hhs:iuiwop:0899. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Elisabeth Gustafsson (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iuiiise.html .

    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.