Beyond the income inequality hypothesis: class, neo-liberalism, and health inequalities

Welfare state regimes and differences in self-perceived health in Europe: A multilevel analysis

“…Welfare state regime typologies have previously been used to analyse cross-national differences in population health (Chung & Muntaner, 2007;Coburn, 2004;Navarro et al, 2003;Navarro et al, 2006). These studies have invariably all concluded that population health is enhanced by the relatively generous and universal welfare provision of the Scandinavian countries (Chung & Muntaner, 2007;Coburn, 2004;Navarro et al, 2003;Navarro et al, 2006).…”

“…Welfare state regime typologies have previously been used to analyse cross-national differences in population health (Chung & Muntaner, 2007;Coburn, 2004;Navarro et al, 2003;Navarro et al, 2006). These studies have invariably all concluded that population health is enhanced by the relatively generous and universal welfare provision of the Scandinavian countries (Chung & Muntaner, 2007;Coburn, 2004;Navarro et al, 2003;Navarro et al, 2006). For example, studies have consistently shown that infant mortality rates (IMR) vary significantly by welfare regime type (Bambra, 2006a;Chung & Muntaner, 2007;Coburn, 2004;Navarro et al, 2006), with rates lowest in the Scandinavian countries and highest in the Southern regimes.…”

“…These studies have invariably all concluded that population health is enhanced by the relatively generous and universal welfare provision of the Scandinavian countries (Chung & Muntaner, 2007;Coburn, 2004;Navarro et al, 2003;Navarro et al, 2006). For example, studies have consistently shown that infant mortality rates (IMR) vary significantly by welfare regime type (Bambra, 2006a;Chung & Muntaner, 2007;Coburn, 2004;Navarro et al, 2006), with rates lowest in the Scandinavian countries and highest in the Southern regimes. These systematic differences in health outcomes may be explained by the relative roles of the state, the family and the market in welfare provision (EspingAndersen, 1990) with the more highly decommodifying welfare states (Scandinavian) -through income redistribution (Dahl, Elstad, Hofoss, & Martin-Mollard, 2006;Subramanian & Kawachi, 2006b;Torsheim, Currie, Boyce, & Samdal, 2006b;Torsheim et al, 2006a) and low unemployment (Ferrie, Shipley, Stansfeld, & Marmot, 2002;Keefe et al, 2002;Lahelma, 1992;Martikainen & Valkonen, 1996) -providing better protection against the health effects of a low market (socio-economic) position.…”

“…Bambra, 2006a;Chung & Muntaner, 2007;Coburn, 2004) have used mortality (especially IMR) or life expectancy data as their health outcomes (Navarro et al, 2006); they have tended to rely on Esping-Andersen"s three-fold classification of welfare states (often excluding Southern and Eastern Europe), and they have seldom utilised a multilevel design (except for the studies of Olsen & Dahl (2007) and Chung & Muntaner (2007), in which two levels were applied). Therefore, this paper is the first to focus particularly on morbidity (self-perceived health) differences between welfare state regimes in Europe.…”

Barriers to Knowledge Production, Knowledge Translation, and Urban Health Policy Change: Ideological, Economic, and Political Considerations

“…Though the income inequality hypothesis has been praised for reinforcing the importance of social determinants of health, Wilkinson and Pickett's thesis suffers from deeper problems ranging from incomplete model specification 14 (e.g., income inequality may be an intermediary factor within a broader causal chain) and "indicator fetishism" (e.g., income inequality measures have been imbued with more explanatory power than theoretically and empirically justified) to psychological reductionism (e.g., explanations for health inequalities are reduced to stress). These limitations all contribute to depoliticizing the discussion and leave little room to consider how relational mechanisms based on politics and economics contribute to health inequalities.…”