Income Distribution and Life Expectancy: a Critical Appraisal

In a series of papers published during the past decade Richard Wilkinson has advanced the view that income inequality is the key determinant of variations in average life expectancy at birth among developed countries. Yet a careful examination of the two sources of data on income distribution most often used by Wilkinson suggests that if they are analysed more appropriately they do not lend support to his claims. More recent data on income distribution is now available for several countries in the Organisation for Economic Development and Cooperation in the mid-1980s and for Great Britain from 1961 to 1991. The use of these data also casts doubt on the hypothesis that inequalities in the distribution of income are closely associated with variations in average life expectancy at birth among the richest nations of the world.