More income inequality means that the wealthy will spend more money on their own private goods, leading to more stress among the public
Robert Evans (University of British Columbia), John Lynch, and George Kaplan (the latter two both of the University of Michigan) offer another route linking income inequality to poor health, once again via stress. It goes as follows:
If you want to improve health and quality of life, and decrease the stress, for the average person in a society, you do so by spending money on public goods—better public transit, safer streets, cleaner water, better public schools, universal health care. The bigger the income inequality is in a society, the greater the financial distance between the wealthy and the average. The bigger the distance between the wealthy and the average, the less benefit the wealthy will feel from expenditures on the public good. Instead, they would derive much more benefit by spending the same (taxed) money on their private good—a better chauffeur, a gated community, bottled water, private schools, private health insurance.
As Evans writes, “The more unequal are incomes in a society, the more pronounced will be the disadvantages to its better-off members from public expenditure, and the more resources will those members have [available to them] to mount effective political opposition.” He notes how this “secession of the wealthy” pushes toward “private affluence and public squalor.” And more public squalor means more of the daily stressors and allostatic load that drives down health for everyone.
References
- Sapolsky, Robert. (2004). Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers Chapter 17. The View from the Bottom (p. 532). New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company.
Metadata
Type:🔴 Tags: Biology / Neuroscience / Psychology / Neuropsychology / Politics / Economics Status:☀️