https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.2307%2F3343168.pdf

Development as Freedom

Poverty in the United Kingdom

I explore the connection between income inequality and health in both poor and rich countries. I discuss a range of mechanisms, including nonlinear income effects, credit restrictions, nutritional traps, public goods provision, and relative deprivation. I review the evidence on the effects of income inequality on the rate of decline of mortality over time, on geographical pattens of mortality, and on individual-level mortality. Much of the literature needs to be treated skeptically, if only because of the low quality of much of the data on income inequality. Although there are many puzzles that remain, I conclude that there is no direct link from income inequality to ill-health; individuals are no more likely to die if they live in more unequal places. The raw correlations that are sometimes found are likely the result of factors other than income inequality, some of which are intimately linked to broader notions of inequality and unfairness. That income inequality itself is not a health risk does not deny the importance for health of other inequalities, nor of the social environment. Whether income redistribution can improve population health does not depend on a direct effect of income inequality and remains an open question.

Health, Inequality, and Economic Development

Mortality rates have fallen dramatically over time, starting in a few countries in the 18th century, and continuing to fall today. In just the past century, life expectancy has increased by over 30 years. At the same time, mortality rates remain much higher in poor countries, with a difference in life expectancy between rich and poor countries of also about 30 years. This difference persists despite the remarkable progress in health improvement in the last half century, at least until the HIV/AIDS pandemic. In both the time-series and the cross-section data, there is a strong correlation between income per capita and mortality rates, a correlation that also exists within countries, where richer, better-educated people live longer. We review the determinants of these patterns: over history, over countries, and across groups within countries. While there is no consensus about the causal mechanisms, we tentatively identify the application of scientific advance and technical progress (some of which is induced by income and facilitated by education) as the ultimate determinant of health. Such an explanation allows a consistent interpretation of the historical, cross-country, and within-country evidence. We downplay direct causal mechanisms running from income to health.

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The Determinants of Mortality

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Social exclusion : concept, application, and scrutiny

The findings in this study are broadly consistent with findings of Kishor on the link between economic and cultural worth and female child survival. It is reported that prior literature is unclear about the precise mechanisms underlying the relationship between gender bias in survival and particular economic and social variables. This analysis which aims to clarify the nature of the relationship is based on a sample of 296 districts in India in 1981. The poverty variable had similar effects regardless of whether 1971-72 or 1987-88 data was used and was viewed as crucial in the analysis. Labor force (proportion of female "main workers") is treated as an exogenous variable. Female literacy had a negative and statistically significant effect on child mortality for both genders but the effect on female mortality was larger. Male literacy had a significant effect on the extent of gender bias in child survival. North versus South regional differences in impact of literacy were not apparent. Higher female labor force participation statistically significantly reduced the extent of gender bias in child survival. The relationship with absolute levels of child mortality is viewed as complex and dependent upon the inclusion of controls for level of poverty. Urbanization and medical facilities had a negative statistically significant effect on child mortality. Higher levels of poverty were associated with higher levels of child mortality and lower levels of female disadvantage. The southern region was found even after controlling for other variables to have lower levels of child mortality particularly for girls. The link between higher fertility and higher female mortality was statistically significant. Female literacy and medical facilities jointly were found to reduce child mortality. Child mortality was higher in districts with a lower juvenile sex ratio. Findings lend support to the view that gender bias is not reduced by higher economic development is not nonlinear and is still evident. Higher levels of male literacy and urbanization lower levels of poverty and improved medical access were all associated with larger female disadvantage.

Mortality fertility and gender bias in India: a district-level analysis.

Since 2009, the European Union (EU) portfolio of commonly agreed social in-dicators includes measures of material deprivation. The rationale for this inclu-sion is that if purely income-based indicators of poverty and inequality are es-sential, they are nevertheless not sufficient to satisfactorily reflect the diversity of living conditions in the EU, especially since the 2004 and 2007 enlarge-ments. The paper analyses the relationship between income poverty and mate-rial deprivation in 25 European countries (24 EU Member States plus Norway) and aims at identifying the most important factors that determine the risk of being income poor and/or materially deprived. It is based on the 2007 cross-sectional data of the EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) users? data base.

Income poverty and material deprivation in European countries

In June 2010, European Union (EU) Heads of State and Government adopted a social inclusion target as part of the new ‘Europe 2020 Strategy’: to lift at least 20 million people in the EU from the risk of poverty and exclusion by 2020. One of the three indicators used to monitor progress towards this target is the EU indicator of severe material deprivation (MD). A main limitation of this indicator is the weak reliability of some of the items it is based on. For this reason, a thematic module on MD was included in the 2009 wave of the EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) survey. This article assesses the 2009 EU-SILC MD data and proposes an analytical framework for developing robust EU MD indicators. It carries out a systematic item by item analysis at both EU and country levels to identify the MD items which satisfactorily meet suitability, validity, reliability and additivity criteria across the EU. This approach has resulted in a proposed 13-item MD indicator covering some key aspects of living conditions which are customary across the whole EU covering a broad range of basic (food, clothes, shoes, etc.) as well as social (Internet, regular leisure activities, etc.) necessities.

/pdf/improving-the-measurement-of-material-deprivation-at-the-4n0aek95wp.pdf

Improving the measurement of material deprivation at the European Union level

The paper discusses methodological issues raised by the construction of indicators on material deprivation, which is defined here as an enforced lack of a combination of items depicting some aspects of living conditions related to housing conditions, possession of durables and capacity to afford basic requirements. More specifically, its focus is on the selection of items, their dimensional structure, their aggregation in a synthetic measure and their weighting. The paper also puts in perspective material deprivation and income-based poverty indicators to emphasise the complementarity of the two approaches. It covers the European Union countries available in the 2007 Community Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) users’ data base.

A European Union Approach to Material Deprivation using EU-SILC and Eurobarometer data

This paper proposes a new measure of child material and social deprivation (MSD) in the European Union (EU) which includes age appropriate child-specific information available from the thematic deprivation modules included in the 2009 and 2014 waves of the “EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions” (EU‑SILC). It summarises the main results of the in-depth analysis of these two datasets, identifies an optimal set of robust children MSD items and recommends a child‑specific MSD indicator for use by EU countries and the European Commission in their regular social monitoring. In doing this, the paper replicates and expands on the methodological framework outlined in Guio, Gordon and Marlier (2012), particularly by including additional advanced reliability tests.

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs12187-017-9491-6.pdf

Anne-Catherine Guio

Papers

Mortality fertility and gender bias in India: a district-level analysis.

Income poverty and material deprivation in European countries

Improving the measurement of material deprivation at the European Union level

A European Union Approach to Material Deprivation using EU-SILC and Eurobarometer data

Towards an EU measure of child deprivation