[PEN-L:107] RE: Poverty and illness

["Fellows, Jeffrey" <jmf9@xxxxxxx>]

The Wilkenson is excellent, and represents a growing body of research on
the negative association between income inequality and morbidity and
mortality. Wilkenson makes a nice connection between the social stresses
created by poverty and low social status and biological disfunction. It
is a good complement to the largely population-based research on the
subject. The income inequality research is a subset of a much larger,
and growing, body of work on the negative relationship between
socioeconomic status and morbidity and mortality, including personal
violence. The American Journal of Public Health devoted its September,
1997 issue to social class and health, and the August 15, 1997 issue of
Science has an interesting piece by Sampson, Raudenbush, and Earls, on
neighborhood violence, SES, and social protective factors for homicide.

Marxists are probably most aware of the role of poverty in fostering
social forms of violence.  For personal violence, low SES has a
well-established impact on the incidences and severity of intimate
partner violence, child abuse and neglect, and youth violence.
Increasing income has also been shown to be protective for future
(personal) violence for persons at risk, such as children witnessing
parental violence who may or may not have violence intimate
relationships in the future.

A note of caution, the role of economics in intimate partner violence
must be examined in a way that addresses the way in which market work
roles impact the relative power of abuser and abused. Some earlier work
posited that which ever spouse earned the most income would use their
higher status to wield control over their partner. In other words, if a
married woman earned twice as much as her husband, she would have the
decisive decision-making authority in the family. This is certainly not
the case, women who earn more than their working-class husbands are
generally at greater risk for IPV than women who do not earn as much as
their husbands. A good example of work in this area is Karen Pyke,
"Women's Employment As a Gift or Burden?: Marital Power Across Marriage,
Divorce, and Remarriage," in Gender & Society, v8(1), March 1994, pp.
73-91.

I am currently working on a review paper of the SES and personal
violence literature. I will share it with others when it is done.

Jeff
 ----------
From: Louis Proyect
To: marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: [PEN-L:106] Poverty and illness
Date: Thursday, July 02, 1998 1:35PM

Life & Death on the Social Ladder

HELEN EPSTEIN

July 16, 1998

BOOKS DISCUSSED IN THIS ARTICLE

Unhealthy Societies: The Afflictions of Inequality by Richard G.
Wilkinson
255 pages, $75.00 (hardcover), $20.99 (paperback) published by Routledge

Healthy Work: Stress, Productivity, and the Reconstruction of Working
Life
by Robert Karasek and Töres Theorell 381 pages, $16.00 (paperback)
published by Basic Books

Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers: A Guide to Stress, Stress-Related Diseases,
and Coping by Robert M. Sapolsky 368 pages, $14.95 (paperback) published
by
W.H. Freeman

The Power of Clan: The Influence of Human Relationships on Heart Disease
by
Stewart Wolf and John G. Bruhn 192 pages, $21.95 (paperback) published
by
Transaction