In other words, greater inequality makes it harder to achieve the American dream of economic mobility. Alan Krueger was not alone in his concern for what income inequality could do to those further down in the income hierarchy.
The British epidemiologists Kate E. Pickett and Richard G. Wilkinson published a book in , presenting cross-country evidence of how outcomes such as mental and physical health, drug abuse, education, imprisonment, obesity, social mobility, trust and community, and child well-being are worse for the majority of people in countries where income inequality is high. Their research has since been corroborated by more recent studies on the consequences of income inequality on self-reported health , violent crime , and life satisfaction.
Despite this growing body of evidence, income inequality continues to be on the rise in many countries around the world. If income inequality is overwhelmingly bad for most people in a society, why do they — especially those who live in the most unequal of places — still put up with it? According to the latest work by Harvard sociologist Jonathan J. It seems that people in the most unequal societies, irrespective of whether they are from the working class, the lower middle class, or the upper middle class, are more likely to believe that the rich are rich because they worked hard for their income, while the poor are poor because of a lack of trying.
Our latest research , however, offers an additional explanation for the income inequality puzzle. We find that people put up with high levels of inequality for two reasons: First, people generally care deeply about where they stand in terms of earnings within a group — for example, whether they are the 5th or 40th highest-paid person in their workplace.
So, we argue that people in an unequal society have a relatively larger incentive to move up the income ranks than those living in places where most people earn similar incomes — simply because each step up the income ladder pays out more in terms of happiness.
Quite possibly, this larger incentive leads people to ignore or rationalize the negative consequences of income inequality at the collective level. We examined nationally representative, cross-sectional data, collected over a six-year period from around , individuals across 24 countries.
This book highlights the key areas where inequalities are created and where new policies are required, including persisting gender gaps; the challenge of high wealth concentration, and the role for redistribution policies, among others.
Due to the increasing importance of income inequality and poverty issues in policy discussion, the database is now annually updated. What's your perception of income inequality? In only a few clicks, you can see where you fit in your country's income distribution. See here for a full list of our related publications and other material on income distribution and poverty. For more information, please contact Inequality. Contact oecd. Inequality and Poverty There is widespread concern that economic growth has not been fairly shared, and that the economic crisis has only widened the gap between rich and poor.
How people perceive economic disparities and social mobility" report. Still, our results prompt scholars as well as the public to re-think the widespread negative image of contemporary society.
In many countries, there is small progress towards a better society with less social ills" explains Leonie Steckermeier, co-author of the study. The empirical analysis was based on a set of six social ills, namely low life expectancy, infant mortality, and obesity as health issues, and intentional homicides, teenage pregnancy, and imprisonment rate as social problems.
The data were compiled from international sources such as the Worldbank and the World Health Organization for the years from to The structure of the compiled dataset allows to compare health and social problems between countries and across time.
The study has been published in the international social science journal Social Indicators Research SIR and can be downloaded for free:. Delhey, Jan and Steckermeier, Leonie C.
0コメント