Edwards Ryan
Department of Economics, Queens College, City University of New York, Flushing, NY 11367, USA.
Soc Sci Med. 2008 Dec;67(12):2051-8. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2008.09.032. Epub 2008 Nov 1.
There is renewed interest in understanding how fluctuations in mortality and in health are related to fluctuations in economic conditions. The traditional perspective that economic recessions lower health and raise mortality has been challenged by recent findings that reveal mortality is actually procyclical. The epidemiology of the phenomenon - traffic accidents, cardiovascular disease, and smoking and drinking - suggests that socioeconomically vulnerable populations might be disproportionately at risk of "working themselves to death" during periods of heightened economic activity. In this paper, I examine mortality by individual characteristic during the 1980s and 1990s using the U.S. National Longitudinal Mortality Study. I find scant evidence that disadvantaged groups are significantly more exposed to procyclical mortality. Rather, working-age men with more education appear to bear a heavier burden, while those with little education experience countercyclical mortality.
人们重新开始关注死亡率和健康状况的波动如何与经济状况的波动相关联。传统观点认为经济衰退会损害健康并提高死亡率，但最近的研究结果对这一观点提出了挑战，这些研究表明死亡率实际上是顺周期的。从交通事故、心血管疾病以及吸烟和饮酒等现象的流行病学来看，社会经济弱势群体在经济活动增强期间可能面临不成比例的“过度劳累致死”风险。在本文中，我利用美国国家纵向死亡率研究，考察了20世纪80年代和90年代按个人特征划分的死亡率情况。我发现几乎没有证据表明弱势群体更容易受到顺周期死亡率的影响。相反，受教育程度较高的劳动年龄男性似乎承受着更重的负担，而受教育程度较低的男性则经历反周期死亡率。
