The problems of relative deprivation: Why some societies do better than others
The problems of relative deprivation: Why some societies do better than others
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DOI：
10.1016/j.socscimed.2007.05.041
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发表时间：
2007-11-01
影响因子：
5.4
通讯作者：
Pickett, Kate E.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Wilkinson, Richard G.;Pickett, Kate E.
在本文中，我们提出的证据表明，影响健康和许多其他社会结果的社会地位分化的关键过程发生在社会层面。理解它们似乎可能涉及对整个社会的分析和比较。使用收入不平等作为一个社会中社会经济分层规模的指标和决定因素，我们表明，与相对剥夺相关的许多问题在更不平等的社会中更为普遍。我们总结了之前发表的证据，表明发病率和死亡率、肥胖、青少年出生率、精神疾病、凶杀、低信任度、低社会资本、敌意和种族主义可能都是如此。除此之外，我们还添加了新的分析，这些分析表明，学童教育成绩不佳、入狱人口比例、吸毒过量死亡率和社会流动性低等情况也是如此。健康状况不佳以及与社会内部社会地位相关的各种其他社会问题在更加不平等的社会中也更为常见，这可能意味着收入不平等是造成与贫困、相对剥夺或社会地位低下相关的明显根深蒂固的社会问题的核心。我们认为，一个社会的物质不平等程度可能不仅是涉及国家社会分层模式的社会力量的核心，而且许多与低社会地位相关的问题也可能会受到收入分配变化的影响。如果这些问题的普遍程度因收入分配的差异而在不同社会之间存在如此大的差异，那么这表明我们所熟悉的健康和其他结果的社会梯度不太可能是由于社会流动性仅仅根据先验特征对人们进行分类而产生的。相反，这张图表明，它们在人口中的出现频率受到社会分层规模的影响，而社会分层规模在不同社会之间存在很大差异。 (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. 保留所有权利。
In this paper, we present evidence which suggests that key processes of social status differentiation, affecting health and numerous other social outcomes, take place at the societal level. Understanding them seems likely to involve analyses and comparisons of whole societies.Using income inequality as an indicator and determinant of the scale of socioeconomic stratification in a society, we show that many problems associated with relative deprivation are more prevalent in more unequal societies. We summarise previously published evidence suggesting that this may be true of morbidity and mortality, obesity, teenage birth rates, mental illness, homicide, low trust, low social capital, hostility, and racism. To these we add new analyses which suggest that this is also true of poor educational performance among school children, the proportion of the population imprisoned, drug overdose mortality and low social mobility.That ill health and a wide range of other social problems associated with social status within societies are also more common in more unequal societies, may imply that income inequality is central to the creation of the apparently deep-seated social problems associated with poverty, relative deprivation or low social status. We suggest that the degree of material inequality in a society may not only be central to the social forces involved in national patterns of social stratification, but also that many of the problems related to low social status may be amenable to changes in income distribution.If the prevalence of these problems varies so much from society to society according to differences in income distribution, it suggests that the familiar social gradients in health and other outcomes are unlikely to result from social mobility sorting people merely by prior characteristics. Instead, the picture suggests that their frequency in a population is affected by the scale of social stratification that differs substantially from one society to another. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.