Department of Human Sciences, 1787 Neil Avenue, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA; DIW Berlin, Mohrenstraße 58, 10117 Berlin, Germany; NBER, Cambridge, MA, USA.
DIW Berlin, Mohrenstraße 58, 10117 Berlin, Germany; NBER, Cambridge, MA, USA; Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA; Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne, Australia.
Soc Sci Med. 2015 Mar;128:347-55. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.12.026. Epub 2014 Dec 24.
We investigate the association between adult health and the income inequality they experienced as children up to 80 years earlier. Our inequality data track shares of national income held by top percentiles from 1913 to 2009. We average those data over the same early-life years and merge them to individual data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics data for 1984-2009. Controlling for demographic and economic factors, we find both men and women are statistically more likely to report poorer health if income was more unequally distributed during the first years of their lives. The association is robust to alternative specifications of income inequality and time trends and remains significant even when we control for differences in overall childhood health. Our results constitute prima facie evidence that adults' health may be adversely affected by the income inequality they experienced as children.
我们研究了成年人的健康状况与他们在 80 年前儿童时期所经历的收入不平等之间的关系。我们的不平等数据跟踪了 1913 年至 2009 年期间收入最高的百分位数所占的份额。我们将这些数据按相同的早期生命年份平均，并将其与 1984 年至 2009 年期间收入动态面板研究的数据合并。在控制人口统计和经济因素的情况下，如果一个人在生命的最初几年经历了更不平等的收入分配，那么他们在统计上更有可能报告自己的健康状况较差。这种关联在收入不平等和时间趋势的替代指标下是稳健的，即使我们控制了整体儿童时期健康状况的差异，这种关联仍然显著。我们的研究结果初步表明，成年人的健康可能会受到他们在儿童时期所经历的收入不平等的不利影响。
