ECONOMIC STATUS, ECONOMIC INEQUALITY AND HEALTH INEQUALITY

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There is a well-established correlation between economic status and health status: wealthier people are healthier and live longer than those who are poorer. Although the correlation between economic status and health is well-documented, it is not well understood. The purpose of this project is to examine links between health and economic status, to study how the relationship between wealth and health evolves over the life-cycle as people age, and compare the relationship between wealth and health evolves over the life-cycle as people age, and to compare the relationship across nations and across subgroups within populations. The broad goal of the project is to better understand the mechanisms that link health and economic status. The subproject contains five inter- related pieces: 1) We will construct theoretical models of the life- cycle evolution of income, consumption, wealth, and health status, and will fit these models to data; 2) We will re-examine the "gradient," the link between socioeconomic status and health status, using data from a variety of sources in several countries, to better understand the mechanisms by which economic status affects health and health affects economic status; 3) We will investigate the hypothesis that economic inequality is itself a determinant of health status; 4) We will use evidence from South Africa where a generous pension system has recently been extended to elderly non-white Africans, to better understand the effects of money on the health of the elderly; and 5) We will examine the effects on the equality of wealth and retirement income among the elderly of increased accumulations of private wealth in personal saving accounts such as 401(k)s, and to assess the consequences (if any) for mortality and morbidity.