Income inequality and health: Lessons from a refugee residential assignment program

Arbeitspapier

This paper examines the effect of income inequality on health for a group of particularly disadvantaged individuals: refugees. Our analysis draws on longitudinal hospitalization records coupled with a settlement policy where Swedish authorities assigned newly arrived refugees to their first area of residence. The policy was implemented in a way that provides a source of plausibly random variation in initial location. The results reveal no statistically significant effect of income inequality on the risk of being hospitalized. This finding holds also for most population subgroups and when separating between different types of diagnoses. Our estimates are precise enough to rule out large effects of income inequality on health.

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• Sprache: Englisch

Verweise und Beziehungen

• Erschienen in: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 6554

Klassifikation und Themen

• Klassifikation: Wirtschaft ; Health: General ; Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
• Thema: income inequality ; immigration ; quasi-experiment ; Einkommensverteilung ; Gesundheit ; Flüchtlinge ; Soziale Integration ; Schweden

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Geistige Schöpfung
• (wer): Grönqvist, Hans ; Johansson, Per ; Niknami, Susan
• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wer): Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
• (wo): Bonn
• (wann): 2012

Weitere Informationen

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/58647
• URN: urn:nbn:de:101:1-201301212176