Search PubMed⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search PubMed

Results for “Income Distribution”

Search indexed PubMed citations on genomics, clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health. Explore titles, authors and supplied subject terms, then open the PubMed record.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 109 records · Page 6Linked to original sources
PubMed2006

Intergenerational mobility for women and minorities in the United States.

Now that some of the historic barriers to economic success for U.S. women and minorities have begun to fall, women and blacks, in particular, are moving upward on the nation's socioeconomic ladder. Melissa Kearney reviews evidence that improved economic opportunities for these two groups make sex and race less important than they once were in determining economic status. But sex- and race-based differences in wages and income persist, and interactions between sex and class and between race and class continue to play a role in the intergenerational transmission of income status. Kearney surveys studies and data showing that marriage remains important in determining women's economic status, even though marriage rates among women aged eighteen to thirty-four have been falling--from 73 percent in 1960 to 44 percent in 2000. Not only do spousal earnings continue to dominate family income for married women, but also women tend to marry men whose position in the income distribution resembles their fathers' position. Marriage thus facilitates the transmission of economic status from parents to daughters. Racial wage gaps persist, says Kearney, largely because of differences in education, occupation, and skill. It also appears likely that the effects of discrimination, both current and past, continue to impede racial economic convergence. Kearney notes that the transmission of income class from parents to children among blacks differs noticeably from that among whites. Black parents and white parents pass their economic standing along to children at similar rates. But because mean income is lower among blacks than among whites, the likelihood of upward mobility in the overall income distribution is substantially lower among blacks. Black children are much more likely than white children to remain in the lower percentiles of the income distribution, and white children are more likely to remain in the upper reaches of the income distribution. Downward mobility from the top quartile to the bottom quartile is nearly four times as great for blacks as for whites.

Female↗
PubMed2001

The effects of income inequality and income level on mortality vary by population size in Texas counties.

OBJECTIVES: This study uses the counties of Texas to empirically test the predictions of Wilkinson's theory on the role of income and inequality in explaining health differentials in populations. Wilkinson predicts (1) that health is affected more by income inequality than average income in areas with large population, and (2) that health is affected more by average income than income inequality in areas with small population. We investigate how large the population of a unit must be for income inequality within the unit to affect mortality. METHODS: Measures of income inequality were computed from the 1990 U.S. census data and mortality was computed from Vital Statistics data. Poisson regressions estimated the age-adjusted relative risk of the top quintile relative to the bottom quintile for equality and for income among selections of Texas counties based on population size. County ethnic composition, educational level, and health care access were controlled for. RESULTS: Among counties with populations greater than 150,000, the risk of death was lower in counties with more equal income distribution than in counties with less equal income distribution. Among counties with population less than 150,000, median income affected relative risk in counties with less than 30 percent Hispanics, but not in those with more than 30 percent Hispanics. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides some support for the predictions of Wilkinson's theory.

Censuses↗
PubMed2005

From wealth to health: modelling the distribution of income per capita at the sub-national level using night-time light imagery.

BACKGROUND: Sub-national figures providing information about the wealth of the population are useful in defining the spatial distribution of both economic activity and poverty within any given country. Furthermore, since several health indicators such as life expectancy are highly correlated with household welfare, sub-national figures allow for the estimation of the distribution of these health indicators within countries when direct measurement is difficult.We have developed methods that utilize spatially distributed information, including night-time light imagery and population to model the distribution of income per capita, as a proxy for wealth, at the country and sub-national level to support the estimation of the distribution of correlated health indicators. RESULTS: A first set of analysis are performed in order to propose a new global model for the prediction of income per capita at the country level. A second set of analysis is then confirming the possibility to transfer the country level approach to the sub-national level on a country by country basis before underlining the difficulties to create a global or regional models for the extrapolation of sub-national figures when no country data set exists. CONCLUSIONS: The methods described provide promising results for the extrapolation of national and sub-national income per capita figures. These results are then discussed in order to evaluate if the proposed methods could not represent an alternative approach for the generation of consistent country specific and/or global poverty maps disaggregated to some sub-national level.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2005

Relatively poor, absolutely ill? A study of regional income inequality in Russia and its possible health consequences.

STUDY OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether the income distribution in a Russian region has a "contextual" effect on individuals' self rated health, and whether the regional income distributions are related to regional health differences. METHODS: The Russia longitudinal monitoring survey (RLMS) is a survey (n = 7696) that is representative of the Russian population. With multilevel regressions both individual as well as contextual effects on self rated health were estimated. MAIN RESULTS: The effect of income inequality is not negative on men's self rated health as long as the level of inequality is not very great. When inequality levels are high, however, there is a tendency for men's health to be negatively affected. Regional health differences among men are in part explained by regional income differences. On the other hand, women do not seem to be affected in the same way, and individual characteristics like age and educational level seem to be more important. CONCLUSIONS: It seems that a rise in income inequality has no negative effect on men's self rated health as long as the level of inequality is not very great. On the other hand, when inequality levels are higher a rise tends to affect men's health negatively. A curvilinear relation between self rated health and income distribution is an interesting hypothesis. It could help to explain the confusing results that arise when you look at countries with a high degree of income inequality (USA) and those with lower income inequality (for example, Japan and New Zealand).

Attitude to Health↗
PubMed1993

Proposals to modify the taxation of Social Security benefits: options and distributional effects.

This article presents simulation estimates of the income-distributional effects in 1994 of several proposals to modify the taxation of Social Security benefits under the Federal personal income tax. Under the benefit-taxation provisions that have been in effect since 1984, up to 50 percent of benefits are included in taxable income for taxpayers with incomes above certain thresholds. In 1994 about 20 percent of beneficiary families will pay a larger income tax as a result of these provisions. Because of the benefit taxation thresholds, the affected families are concentrated in the upper half of the income distribution: about 70 percent of these families have incomes that put them in the top 30 percent of families by income. If the current taxation thresholds were kept and the percentage of benefits includable in taxable income were raised above 50 percent, the tax effect would remain concentrated on the upper income families. If, on the other hand, the percentage includable were kept at 50 percent while the taxation thresholds were lowered or eliminated, more beneficiary families with incomes in the middle deciles would become affected. The lowest income beneficiary families, however, would remain unaffected, because their benefits would be protected from income taxation by exemptions and the standard deduction. The simulations indicate that only a very few families in the bottom 20 percent of families by income would be affected even if the benefit taxation thresholds were eliminated entirely.

Insurance Benefits↗
PubMed1995

[International migration and income redistribution: a trade-theoretic analysis].

"We analyze the income-redistribution effects of international migration in the host and source country in a general equilibrium framework. The well-known result that marginal migration leaves the welfare of nonmigrants unaffected is discussed in more detail with regard to shifts in national income distributions. With endogenous goods' prices the consequences for the income distribution are in general ambiguous--we show possibilities for an estimation of their magnitude. As long as wage disparities determine the direction of migration it increases world efficiency. However, redistributive policies may generate migration towards the low-wage country." (SUMMARY IN ENG)

Demography↗
PubMed2004

Analysis of health-related quality of life (HRQL), its distribution, and its distribution by income in Japan, 1989 and 1998.

Research conducted over the past decade has increasingly focused on health inequality. The goals of improving the health of a population are now often expressed as the increase in the average level of health and the decrease in health inequality as clearly specified in the Healthy People 2010 and the World Health Report 2000. Using a nationally representative sample of the 1989 and 1998 waves of the Japanese Comprehensive Survey of Living Conditions of the People on Health and Welfare (CSLC), this research examines the average health-related quality of life (HRQL), its distribution, and its distribution by income share. This study departs from previous health inequality analyses in the following two ways: (1) construction of a measure of HRQL in the CSLC and its application to health inequality analysis, and (2) inclusion of the dead in health inequality analysis using a cross-sectional survey. This study found that between 1989 and 1998 the average HRQL in Japan slightly reduced (0.005 reduction), its inequality by income slightly reduced (0.002 reduction in the difference between the top 20% and bottom 20% income share groups), and its inequality measured by the Gini coefficient slightly increased (0.002 increase). Women's HRQL was almost always lower than men's, except in earlier ages younger than 10 years old. HRQL was more unequally distributed among women than men and in older ages. This analysis shows that the success in the improvement in the length of life in Japan did not always coincide with the improvement in HRQL and provides a basis for the future population health research.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed2000

Health and rapid economic change in the late twentieth century.

Rapidly expanding economies, such as the post-war Tiger Economies, are associated with increasing health and rapidly contracting economies, such as Central and Eastern Europe in the early 1990s, are associated with declining health. In Central and Eastern Europe health decline in association with economic contraction has been mediated by changes in income distribution and, also, by health-determining aspects of civil society. The nations of Central and Eastern Europe are an example of swift economic and political transformation occurring concurrently with economic decline; with increasing disparity in income distributions; and with high levels of distrust in civil institutions. Concurrent with these declines was a marked reduction in health status, described here in terms of life expectancy. Conversely, the nations of Southeast Asia experienced rapid economic growth and increasing life expectancies. Though data are scarce, the experience of the Tiger Economies appears to be one of economic growth; a virtuous cycle of increased investment in education and housing; and increasing parity in income distribution based upon a relatively equitable distribution of returns on education.

Cross-Cultural Comparison↗
PubMed2002

Income inequality and self rated health in Britain.

STUDY OBJECTIVE: Several studies have reported an association between income inequality and increased mortality, but few have used net income data, controlled for individual income, or evaluated sensitivity to the choice of inequality measure. The study tested the hypotheses that people in regions of Britain with the greatest income inequality would report worse health than those in other regions, after adjusting for individual socioeconomic circumstances. DESIGN: Cross sectional survey. SETTING: England, Wales, and Scotland. PARTICIPANTS: 8366 people living in private households. MAIN RESULTS: Regional income inequality, measured using the Gini index, was associated with worse self rated health, especially among those with the lowest incomes (adjusted OR 1.55, 95% CI 1.24 to 1.92) (p<0.001). This association was not robust to the choice of income inequality measure, being maximal for the Gini coefficient and weakest when using indices that are more sensitive to income differences among those at the top or bottom of the income distribution. CONCLUSIONS: The study found limited evidence of an association between income inequality and worse self rated health in Britain, which was greatest among those with the lowest individual income levels. As regions with the highest income inequality were also the most urban, these findings may be attributable to characteristics of cities rather than income inequality. The variation in this association with the choice of income inequality measure also highlights the difficulty of studying income distributions using summary measures of income inequality.

Cross-Sectional Studies↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Income inequality and health: the case of Rio de Janeiro].

This ecological analysis addresses the association between income inequality and health status in the municipality of Rio de Janeiro. Data were analyzed using geo-processing and multiple regression techniques. The following health indicators were used: infant mortality rate; standardized mortality rate; life expectancy at birth; and homicide rate among 15-29-year-old males. Patterns of income inequality were assessed through income distribution indicators: Gini index, Robin Hood index, and top 10 %/bottom 40% average income ratio. The results indicate significant correlations between income distribution indicators and health indicators, providing additional empirical evidence of the association between health status and income inequality. For the homicide rate, the effect of the indicator "density of slum residents" was also relevant, suggesting that further deterioration in health standards may be due to social disruption of deprived communities and the resultant increase in criminal activity. The geo-epidemiological analysis presented here highlights the association between adverse health outcomes and residential concentration of poverty. Social policies focused on slum residents are needed to reduce the harmful effects of relative deprivation.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1983

Measuring the costs of children: an alternative approach.

Problems related to the concept of the "cost of a child", more commonly known as the general equivalence scale, are reviewed. The importance of this concept is noted with regard to both theoretical and empirical studies relating to taxation, poverty, income distribution, dietary needs, income maintenance programs, supplementary and child benefits, and other social security payments. "This paper proposes a new methodology for calculating the scale using a framework which is consistent with utility theory and which overcomes the identification problem without having to enforce the arbitrary prior assumptions of recent studies. The proposed method allows easy calculation of not only the basic 'scale' parameter but also how it varies with price and reference utility. [The author illustrates] the usefulness of the procedure by estimating on U.K. budget data at two different levels of aggregation and employing two sets of quite different functional forms. The results are plausible, compare favourably with one another and, hence, confirm the robustness and usefulness of the proposed procedure."

Adolescent↗
PubMed2000

State income inequality, household income, and maternal mental and physical health: cross sectional national survey.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the association of state income inequality and individual household income with the mental and physical health of women with young children. DESIGN: Cross sectional study. Individual level data (outcomes, income, and other sociodemographic covariates) from a 1991 follow up survey of a birth cohort established in 1988. State level income inequality calculated from the income distribution of each state from 1990 US census. SETTING: United States, 1991. PARTICIPANTS: Nationally representative stratified random sample of 8060 women who gave birth in 1988 and were successfully contacted (89%) in 1991. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Depressive symptoms (Center for Epidemiologic Studies depression score >15) and self rated health RESULTS: 19% of women reported depressive symptoms, and 7.5% reported fair or poor health. Compared with women in the highest fifth of distribution of household income, women in the lowest fifth were more likely to report depressive symptoms (33% v 9%, P<0.001) and fair or poor health (15% v 2%, P<0. 001). Compared with low income women in states with low income inequality, low income women in states with high income inequality had a higher risk of depressive symptoms (odds ratio 1.6, 95% confidence interval 1.0 to 2.6) and fair or poor health (1.8, 0.9 to 3.5). CONCLUSIONS: High income inequality confers an increased risk of poor mental and physical health, particularly among the poorest women. Both income inequality and household income are important for health in this population.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1996

Socioeconomic status and weight control practices among 20- to 45-year-old women.

OBJECTIVES: This study examined the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and weight control practices in women. METHODS: SES, defined by family income, was examined in an economically diverse sample of 998 women in relation to dieting practices by means of multivariate regression analyses controlling for age, ethnicity, smoking, and body mass index. RESULTS: SES was positively associated with healthy, but not unhealthy, weight control practices; inversely related to energy and fat intake; and positively associated with weight concern and perceived social support for healthy eating and exercise. SES gradients were particularly striking at the low end of the income distribution (i.e., family income < or = $10,000 per year). The SES gradient in body mass index persisted in analyses controlling for attitudes and behaviors. CONCLUSIONS: Economic deprivation may contribute to high rates of obesity among lower SES women. The reasons for this require further research.

Adult↗
PubMed1999

[Social class index in the Federal Health Survey].

Since the first scaling of social status for the German National Health Interview and Examination Survey, relevant socio-economical circumstances and constraints have changed. This prompted an examination of relevant developments such as changes in income distribution and increasing income in the West and since 1990 in the East of Germany, changes in educational levels, and changes in social prestige of professional groups. In spite of these changes we must assume that the relations between social strata remained constant over time. The task is to assess how and to what extend the developments mentioned above have been reflected and to examine the necessity of bringing social status scaling in line with these developments, as well as to adjust social status scaling.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1990

[Changes in economic well-being of families with children in Canada and Quebec over the last 15 years].

"This study analyses changes in the average real income of families with children [in Canada] over the 1971-1987 period. It presents the factual basis with which to evaluate changes in incomes at a variety of positions along the income distribution, focusing on poverty and income inequality. The study presents the sources of family income changes by emphasizing: the contributions of wives' earnings which affect total family income, the incidence of poverty as well as time available for leisure and child care; the role of government's cash transfers and personal income taxes." (SUMMARY IN ENG AND SPA)

Americas↗
PubMed2004

Income, income inequality, and cardiovascular disease mortality: relations among county populations of the United States, 1985 to 1994.

OBJECTIVES: Despite the major contribution of cardiovascular disease (CVD) to total mortality, and reports demonstrating strong relations between income and CVD, the joint relations of population-level income and income inequality with CVD mortality are not well described. This study was undertaken to describe relations among population-level income, income equality, and mortality due to cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease, and stroke. METHODS: County income distributions were determined from 1990 census data, and CVD mortality rates were obtained from the Compressed Mortality File. Relations among income, income inequality, and CVD mortality were examined in stratified and Poisson regression analyses. RESULTS: County income was inversely related and income inequality was directly related to CVD, coronary heart disease, and stroke mortality. Relations were strongest for stroke. Relations of stroke mortality with income inequality were strongest in low-income populations. CONCLUSIONS: The CVD mortality experiences of county populations are related to both income and income distribution in a complex, disease-dependent manner. The authors' findings are especially relevant to the Southeast, a region of high income inequality, low income, and high stroke mortality.

Adult↗