ArticleQuality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation2022
The effects of U.S. county and state income inequality on self-reported happiness and health are equivalent to zero.
Article in Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Pooled it
- Causal Assessment of Income Inequality on Self-Rated Health and All-Cause Mortality: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.The Milbank quarterly · 2024Pooled it
- Does exercise participation promote happiness?: Mediations and heterogeneities.Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
purposeA popular idea in the social sciences is that contexts with high income inequality undermine people's well-being and health. However, existing studies documenting this phenomenon typically compare a small number of higher-level units (countries/regions). Here, we use local income inequality indicators and temporal designs to provide the most highly powered test to date of the associations between income inequality and self-reported happiness and health in the USA
methodWe combined county-level income inequality data (county-level Gini coefficients) with the responses from the General Social Survey (GSS) Cross-sectional dataset (13,000 + participants from ≈1000 county-waves) and Panels (3 × 3000 + participants from 3 × ≈500 county-waves); we used the GSS happiness ("not too happy," "pretty happy," or "very happy") and health ("poor," "fair," "good," or "excellent") variables.
resultsMultilevel-ordered logistic models and equivalence tests revealed that the within-county effects of income inequality on self-reported happiness and health were systematically equivalent to zero. Additional analyses revealed that the within-state effects were identical, that using alternative measures of state income inequality led to the same conclusions, and that lagged effects (between + 1 and + 12 years) were never significant and always equivalent to zero.
conclusionThe present work suggests that-at least in the USA-income inequality is likely neither associated with self-reported happiness nor with self-reported health.
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