Relative Deprivation and Health among the Elderly in Taiwan

Jennifer Dowd, Princeton University

Richard Wilkinson (1996) first proposed the idea of inequality itself as a health hazard. Much of the evidence to support Wilkinson’s hypothesis has been based on data linking income inequality to aggregate health, which is limited in its ability to convincingly establish the reality of these relationships and discern the mechanisms by which they might be functioning. This paper will use individual-level data to examine the relationship between both objective and subjective measures of relative deprivation and health in a sample of the elderly and near-elderly in Taiwan. Furthermore, unique biological data collected from respondents will allow us to examine the physical mechanisms, such as stress hormones, through which relative deprivation affects health. Data for this study are based on a follow-up of the Survey of Health and Living Status of the Near Elderly and Elderly in Taiwan, as well as the 2000 Social Environment and Biomarkers Aging Study(SEBAS).