Martin
I don't dispute that a manager will feel devastated on loosing her or his job. I lost my job in the 1980s recession, so I know exactly what it feels like. But the difference between the manager (and me) and the shop floor worker is, exactly as you point out, the important difference in ability to access capitals to withstand and move on from unemployment. Those tokens of capital, as Bourdieu described them, that can be exchanged. The networks of friends, family, and acquaintances to be used in times of difficulty; a better eduction; savings; and ultimately class relationships through which the manager can deal with the immediate effects of unemployment and set out to find new work are, invariably, significantly better than those of the shop worker. Wilkinson's cause-effect epidemiology of relative poverty and inequalities in health will not explain this messy social world where we must account for vulnerability, entitlement, resilience, and power.
Research published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (Gordon et al., 2000) found that one in six people considered themselves or their families to living in absolute poverty as defined by the UN. It is not just failed asylum seekers who are living in absolute poverty in the UK. Roughly 9.5 million people in Britain could not afford adequate housing conditions. Around 4 million were not properly fed. In his 1995 book Wilkinson makes the throwaway comment that every household has a cooker. Unusually for an author who relies so much on quantitative data, he offers no evidence to support his claim. He is wrong. In my own research, on low-income estates in the UK, I have been in many homes without cookers, beds, carpets, ..... Even where there is a cooker, there may be no pans and crockery. Or the householders might not have the skills to use them. Living long-term on benefits, amongst others in a similarly situation, is, as you say, no fun. It is fraught with day-to-day difficulties of making ends meet. We need to understand the relationship between the psychosocial and access to material resources in expressions of inequalities in health, not just the psychosocial.
As for the hoary old argument about the poor and the colour TV so loved by the Daily Mail. Here is a description by a single mother of 3, from my research on one of those low-income estates, about the importance of a TV in her life and the difficulties she faces in obtaining (from a loan shark) and keeping it:
CL: Erm, no, they were just walking round knocking on doors.
AC: Okay. Yeah.
CL: So then I thought, “Fuck it. I'll get it.”
AC: Yeah, yeah.
CL: You know what I mean?
AC: Yeah.
CL: That’s how I got my widescreen TV.
AC: Right. Yeah.
CL: You know. So that were good for the kids.
AC: Yeah, yeah.
CL: I mean one time they’ve come back and said, “Oh you haven't paid a coup’,
you haven't been paying a couple of payments.”
AC: Yeah.
CL: You're gonna have to give me thirty quid. I'll take your TV away, and then I'll
bring it back on Friday.”
AC: Right.
CL: So I said, “All right.” I said, “Bring it back Friday.” I gave him thirty quid,
came back, brought the TV back. He said, “I wasn’t even supposed to do that,
you know. I was supposed to just take your TV.” I were like, “Well you can't, you
can't take TV cos of the kids.”
(WI with CL:47)
As an aside, you may be aware that the majority of women in prison in the UK are there because they did not pay the fine for not having a TV licence!
Dr Nick Emmel
School of Sociology and Social Policy
University of Leeds
Leeds
LS2 9JT
+44 (0) 113 343 6958
-----Original Message-----
From: The Health Equity Network (HEN) on behalf of Martin Rathfelder
Sent: Fri 09/01/2009 11:59
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: recession and health
I don't wish to sound like a Tory, but in economic terms obviously the
rich have more to lose. If status is important than clearly the rich
have more of that to lose.
Part of this argument is about the relationship between economic and
psycho-social factors. Losing your job when you are poor and have no
savings is obviously a much bigger problem in one sense than if you are
rich. One of the questions is what is the health impact of being rich.
This recession provides an opportunity to discover what effect, if any,
reductions in differential wealth and income have.
But nobody in the UK apart from failed asylum seekers is absolutely
poor. Even people on JSA have enough to eat and have a colour
television. I have worked for 20 years as a Welfare Rights Adviser, and
I am not suggesting that life on benefits is fun. But it isn't what I
regard as absolute poverty, and the distinction between absolute and
relative poverty is a key issue in this debate. Absolute poverty to me
means no proper home and no secure food supply.
The reduction in disposable income of the counter staff who used to work
at Woolworths is obviously less than that of the senior management. But
the managers probably have savings and are more likely to get another
job. Probably more mobile too. On the other hand some of them might have
more of their identity bound up in the firm than most of the lower paid
staff.
When I ran an advice centre the people who were really emotionally
devastated when they lost their jobs were the better off - who lived in
nice areas where nobody else lived on social security and nobody knew
much about how to survive on it. Poor people who lived on council
estates and knew all about social security offices were much less
upset. Some people - according to the Daily Mail at least- live
contentedly on social security for years. Of course I have no way of
knowing what the health outcomes of the two groups were.
Martin Rathfelder
Director
Socialist Health Association
22 Blair Road
Manchester
M16 8NS
0870 013 0065
www.sochealth.co.uk
If you do not wish to be on our mailing list please let us know and we will
remove you.
Nick Emmel wrote:
> I do wonder if the poor really do 'have less to loose'. A striking feature of the media coverage of this recession are pictures of bankers clearing their desks and walking out of the front door. The cleaners and ancillary staff sloping out of the back door get much less coverage. When low paid workers, like shop workers at Woolworth, loose their jobs the chances are that they and their families are thrown into absolute poverty. We might speculate that they are less resilient, more vulnerable, and will have a much harder time finding employment. As Adam notes, for anyone to loose their job is devastating, but for some it will be more devastating than for others.
>
> Dr Nick Emmel
> School of Sociology and Social Policy
> University of Leeds
> Leeds
> LS2 9JT
> +44 (0) 113 343 6958
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: The Health Equity Network (HEN) on behalf of Adam Oliver
> Sent: Fri 09/01/2009 10:24
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: recession and health
>
> I don't really remember the early 1980s recession as being a particularly great time for narrowing income inequalities, directly causing improvements in health for the poor, or directly causing improvements in health generally. I have to confess that I'm sort of pleased that the housing market bubble has burst (and I'm one of the 'losers' from that), and that the ridiculous and irresponsible policy of credit extension has finally been exposed, but some of the members of the list seem to be suggesting that economic recession may be a good thing. It's a devastating thing for someone when they lose their job and can't find another one. I've seen it, and it may be wise not to lose sight of that.
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: The Health Equity Network (HEN) on behalf of Stephen Bezruchka
> Sent: Fri 09/01/2009 3:58 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: recession and health
>
>
>
> Larry Adelman's question and others' about health consequences brings
> up important basic ideas about the production of health in populations.
>
> One analysis suggests economic growth has been bad for health in the US.
>
> Granados, J. A. T. (2005). "Increasing mortality during the expansions
> of the US economy, 1900-1996." Int. J. Epidemiol. 34(6): 1194-1202.
>
> That article was followed by many commentaries as the concept is
> pretty controversial.
>
> -Brenner, M. H. (2005). "Commentary: Economic growth is the basis of
> mortality rate decline in the 20th century--experience of the United
> States 1901-2000." Int. J. Epidemiol. 34(6): 1214-1221.
> -Catalano, R. and B. Bellows (2005). "Commentary: If economic
> expansion threatens public health, should epidemiologists recommend
> recession?" Int. J. Epidemiol. 34(6): 1212-1213.
> -Edwards, R. D. (2005). "Commentary: Work, well-being, and a new
> calling for countercyclical policy." Int. J. Epidemiol. 34(6):
> 1222-1225.
> -Granados, J. A. T. (2005). "Response: On economic growth, business
> fluctuations, and health progress." Int. J. Epidemiol. 34(6): 1226-1233.
> -Neumayer, E. (2005). "Commentary: The economic business cycle and
> mortality." Int. J. Epidemiol. 34(6): 1221-1222.
> -Ruhm, C. J. (2005). "Commentary: Mortality increases during economic
> upturns." Int. J. Epidemiol. 34(6): 1206-1211.
>
> The background noise, so-to-speak, is that health keeps on improving
> over time unless you screw up big. (viz the Former Soviet Union after
> 1991, or sub-Saharan Africa in the last few decades). Reasons are
> many and likely country specific, but have more to do with improving
> the social environment than other more commonly considered factors.
>
> So it likely depends on how the script is written and played out.
>
> If relative disparity declines in a recession, which is likely, then
> health may improve quicker.
> Eibner, C. and W. N. Evans (2005). "Relative Deprivation, Poor Health
> Habits, and Mortality." J. Human Resources XL(3): 591-620.
> and
> Eibner, C. and W. N. Evans (2004). The income-health relationship and
> the role of relative deprivation. Social inequality. K. M. Neckerman.
> New York, Russell Sage Foundation: 545-568.
>
>
> Stephen
>
> Stephen Bezruchka MD, MPH
> Departments of Health Services & Global Health
> School of Public Health and Community Medicine
> Box 357660
> University of Washington
> Seattle, Washington 98195-7660
> USA
> (206)932-4928
> http://depts.washington.edu/hserv/faculty/?Bezruchka_Stephen
> http://depts.washington.edu/eqhlth/
>
>
>
> Please access the attached hyperlink for an important electronic communications disclaimer: http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/secretariat/legal/disclaimer.htm
>
>
>
>
|