Global Inequality, Workplace Deaths Increase—No Coincidence

by James Parks, Nov 10, 2009

Two new reports paint a sobering picture of what growing global inequality really means. Not only are wages continuing to drop, lowering the standard of living for millions of workers and increasing the wage gap, but evidence is emerging that rising inequality can be bad for your health.

First, the International Labor Organization (ILO), an arm of the United Nations, reported in its “Global Wage Report: 2009 Update” last week that global growth in real wages slowed dramatically last year and is expected to drop even further this year. The report found that in half of the 35 countries for which figures are available, real monthly wages fell in the first quarter of 2009 compared to their average of 2008, often due to cuts in hours worked.

Manuela Tomei, lead author of the ILO study, says:

The continued deterioration of real wages worldwide raises serious questions about the true extent of an economic recovery, especially if government rescue packages are phased out too early. Wage deflation deprives national economies of much needed demand and seriously affects confidence.

With wages continuing to fall, the gap between the world’s rich and everyone else is growing. And that could be deadly, says a new study released today on www.bmj.com, the online publication of the British Medical Association. Researchers from the University of Yamanashi in Japan and Harvard School of Public Health found that if the gap between the richest and poorest people in developed countries was reduced, 1.5 million deaths could be prevented.

They add that more than three-quarters of the 30 countries belonging to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) have experienced an increasing gap between the rich and poor in the past two decades.

After analyzing the results from previous studies involving some 60 million people, the authors found that people living in regions with high income inequality are more likely to die younger, regardless of their income, socioeconomic status, age or gender.

“Income inequality is an exposure that applies to society as a whole,” the authors say. They add that about 1.5 million deaths could be averted in 30 OECD countries by reducing the gap between rich and poor. 

In an accompanying editorial, professors Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson, from the Universities of York and Nottingham, respectively, call on on the world’s governments to stop paying lip service to creating a “classless society” and focus on “undoing the widening of inequalities that has taken place since the 1970s.” They conclude that

the benefits of greater equality tend to be largest among the poor but seem to extend to almost everyone” [and] a more equal society might improve most people’s quality of life.

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