One’s immediate community has a bigger impact on feeling poor than society as a whole
Stress-related disease among the poor usually has more to do with feeling poor than actually being poor, but Income inequality does not predict poor health as much in more egalitarian countries. These studies of nations, states, and cities raise the issue of whom someone is comparing themselves to when they think of where they are on a how-are-you-doing ladder. Nancy Adler tries to get at this by asking her question twice. First, you’re asked to place yourself on the ladder with respect to “society as a whole,” and second, with respect to “your immediate community.” The top-down Wilkinson types get at this by comparing the predictive power of data at the national, state, and city levels. Neither literature has given a clear answer yet, but both seem to suggest that it is one’s immediate community that is most important. As Tip O’Neil, the consummate politician, used to say, “All politics is local.”
References
- Sapolsky, Robert. (2004). Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers Chapter 17. The View from the Bottom (p. 526). New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company.
Metadata
Type:🔴 Tags: Biology / Psychology / Social Psychology / Politics / Economics Status:☀️