1932

Abstract

A growing body of literature suggests that more unequal societies have more polluted and degraded environments, perhaps helping explain why more unequal societies are often less healthy. We summarize the mechanisms by which inequality can lead to environmental degradation and their relevance for public health. We review the evidence of a relationship between environmental quality and social inequality along the axes of income, wealth, political power, and race and ethnicity. Our review suggests that the evidence is strongest for air- and water-quality measures that have more immediate health implications; evidence is less strong for more dispersed pollutants that have longer-term health impacts. More attention should be paid in research and in practice to links among inequality, the environment, and health, including more within-country studies that may elucidate causal pathways and points of intervention. We synthesize common metrics of inequality and methodological considerations in an effort to bring cohesion to such efforts.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-031914-122646
2015-03-18
2024-03-29
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/publhealth/36/1/annurev-publhealth-031914-122646.html?itemId=/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-031914-122646&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

Literature Cited

  1. Anderson LR, Mellor JM, Milyo J. 1.  2008. Inequality and public good provision: an experimental analysis. J. Socioecon. 37:31010–28 [Google Scholar]
  2. Ash M, Boyce JK, Chang G, Scharber H. 2.  2013. Is environmental justice good for white folks? Industrial air toxics exposure in urban America. Soc. Sci. Q. 94:3616–36 [Google Scholar]
  3. Atkinson AB, Piketty T, Saez E. 3.  2011. Top incomes in the long run of history. J. Econ. Lit. 49:13–71 [Google Scholar]
  4. Barrett S, Graddy K. 4.  2000. Freedom, growth, and the environment. Environ. Dev. Econ. 5:433–56 [Google Scholar]
  5. Bernauer T, Koubi V. 5.  2009. Effects of political institutions on air quality. Ecol. Econ. 68:1355–65 [Google Scholar]
  6. Bowles S, Park Y. 6.  2005. Emulation, inequality, and work hours: was Thorsten Veblen right?. Econ. J. 115:507F397–412 [Google Scholar]
  7. Boyce JK. 7.  1994. Inequality as a cause of environmental degradation. Ecol. Econ. 11:169–78 [Google Scholar]
  8. Boyce JK, Klemer AR, Templet PH, Willis CE. 8.  1999. Power distribution, the environment, and public health: a state-level analysis. Ecol. Econ. 29:127–40 [Google Scholar]
  9. Burton-Chellew MN, May RM, West SA. 9.  2013. Combined inequality in wealth and risk leads to disaster in the climate change game. Clim. Change 120:815–30 [Google Scholar]
  10. Chetty R, Hendren N, Kline P, Saez E. 10.  2014. Where is the land of opportunity? The geography of intergenerational mobility in the United States. Cambridge, MA: Natl. Bur. Econ. Res. (NBER Work. Paper No. 19843) [Google Scholar]
  11. Clement M, Meunie A. 11.  2010. Is inequality harmful for the environment? An empirical analysis applied to developing and transition countries. Rev. Soc. Econ. 68:4413–45 [Google Scholar]
  12. Coondoo D, Dinda S. 12.  2008. Carbon dioxide emission and income: a temporal analysis of cross-country distributional patterns. Ecol. Econ. 65:375–85 [Google Scholar]
  13. Delhey J, Dragolov G. 13.  2014. Why inequality makes Europeans less happy: the role of distrust, status anxiety, and perceived conflict. Eur. Sociol. Rev. 30:2151–65 [Google Scholar]
  14. Devetter F-X, Rousseau S. 14.  2011. Working hours and sustainable development. Rev. Soc. Econ. 69:3333–55 [Google Scholar]
  15. Diez Roux AV. 15.  2004. The study of group-level factors in epidemiology: rethinking variables, study designs, and analytical approaches. Epidemiol. Rev. 26:1104–11 [Google Scholar]
  16. Diez Roux AV. 16.  2012. Conceptual approaches to the study of health disparities. Annu. Rev. Public Health 33:41–58 [Google Scholar]
  17. Drabo A. 17.  2011. Impact of income inequality on health: Does environment quality matter?. Environ. Plan. A 43:146–65 [Google Scholar]
  18. Duffy R. 18.  2010. Nature Crime: How We're Getting Conservation Wrong. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press288
  19. Duro JA. 19.  2012. On the automatic application of inequality indexes in the analysis of the international distribution of environmental indicators. Ecol. Econ. 76:1–7 [Google Scholar]
  20. Ewing RH. 20.  2008. Characteristics, causes, and effects of sprawl: a literature review. Urban Ecology: An International Perspective on the Interaction Between Humans and Nature JM Marzluff, E Shulenberger, W Endlicher, M Alberti, G Bradley , et al., pp. 519–35 New York: Springer [Google Scholar]
  21. Farzin YH, Bond CA. 21.  2006. Democracy and environmental quality. J. Dev. Econ. 81:213–35 [Google Scholar]
  22. Finn J. 22.  1996. Freedom in the World: Political Rights and Civil Liberties New York: Freedom House
  23. Frank RH. 23.  2012. The Darwin Economy: Liberty, Competition, and the Common Good Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press266
  24. Fredriksson PG, Neumayer E, Damania R, Gates S. 24.  2005. Environmentalism, democracy, and pollution control. J. Environ. Econ. Manag. 49:343–65 [Google Scholar]
  25. Gassebner M, Gaston N, Lamla MJ. 25.  2008. Relief for the environment? The importance of an increasingly unimportant industrial sector. Econ. Inq. 46:2160–78 [Google Scholar]
  26. Gassebner M, Lamla MJ, Sturm J-E. 26.  2010. Determinants of pollution: What do we really know?. Oxf. Econ. Pap. 63:3568–95 [Google Scholar]
  27. Grafton RQ, Knowles S. 27.  2004. Social capital and national environmental performance: a cross-sectional analysis. J. Environ. Dev. 13:4336–70 [Google Scholar]
  28. Guo L. 28.  2013. Cross-country income disparity and its effect on carbon emissions. Chin. J. Popul. Resour. Environ. 11:133–50 [Google Scholar]
  29. Gupta S, Ogden DT. 29.  2009. To buy or not to buy? A social dilemma perspective on green buying. J. Consum. Mark. 26:6376–91 [Google Scholar]
  30. Harbaugh WT, Levinson A, Wilson DM. 30.  2002. Reexamining the empirical evidence for an environmental Kuznets curve. Rev. Econ. Stat. 84:3541–51 [Google Scholar]
  31. Hayden A, Shandra JM. 31.  2009. Hours of work and the ecological footprint of nations: an exploratory analysis. Local Environ. 14:6575–600 [Google Scholar]
  32. Heerink N, Mulatu A, Bulte E. 32.  2001. Income inequality and the environment: aggregation bias in environmental Kuznets curves. Ecol. Econ. 38:3359–67 [Google Scholar]
  33. Holland TG, Peterson GD, Gonzalez A. 33.  2009. A cross-national analysis of how economic inequality predicts biodiversity loss. Conserv. Biol. 23:51304–13 [Google Scholar]
  34. Irwin K, Berigan N. 34.  2013. Trust, culture, and cooperation: a social dilemma analysis of pro-environmental behaviors. Sociol. Q. 54:424–49 [Google Scholar]
  35. Jacoby K. 35.  1997. Class and environmental history: lessons from “The War in the Adirondacks.”. Environ. Hist. 2:3324–42 [Google Scholar]
  36. Jaggers K, Gurr TR. 36.  1995. Tracking democracy's third wave with the Polity III data. J. Peace Res. 32:4469–82 [Google Scholar]
  37. Jalas M. 37.  2002. A time use perspective on the materials intensity of consumption. Ecol. Econ. 41:1109–23 [Google Scholar]
  38. Janssen M, Ostrom E. 38.  2007. Adoption of a new regulation for the governance of common-pool resources by a heterogeneous population. Inequality, Cooperation, and Environmental Sustainability J-M Baland, P Bardhan, S Bowles 60–96 Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  39. Jáuregui Nolen J, Tello Medina DC, Rivas García MdP. 39.  2012. Desigualdad y política ambiental en México. Econ. Mex. Nueva Época 21:2251–75 [Google Scholar]
  40. Jesdale BM, Morello-Frosch R, Cushing L. 40.  2013. The racial/ethnic distribution of heat risk-related land cover in relation to residential segregation. Environ. Health Perspect. 121:7811–17 [Google Scholar]
  41. Kahn ME. 41.  1998. A household level environmental Kuznets curve. Econ. Lett. 59:2269–73 [Google Scholar]
  42. Kawachi I, Kennedy BP. 42.  2006. The Health of Nations: Why Inequality is Harmful to Your Health New York: New Press
  43. Kawachi I, Kennedy BP, Lochner K, Prothrow-Stith D. 43.  1997. Social capital, income inequality, and mortality. Am. J. Public Health 87:91491–98 [Google Scholar]
  44. Kawachi I, Subramanian SV, Kim D. 44.  2008. Social capital and health. Social Capital and Health I Kawachi, SV Subramanian, D Kim 1–26 New York: Springer [Google Scholar]
  45. Kemp-Benedict E. 45.  2013. Inequality and trust: testing a mediating relationship for environmental sustainability. Sustainability 5:5779–88 [Google Scholar]
  46. Knight KW, Rosa EA, Schor JB. 46.  2013. Could working less reduce pressures on the environment? A cross-national panel analysis of OECD countries, 1970–2007. Glob. Environ. Change 23:4691–700 [Google Scholar]
  47. Kondo N, Sembajwe G, Kawachi I, van Dam RM, Subramanian SV, Yamagata Z. 47.  2009. Income inequality, mortality, and self rated health: meta-analysis of multilevel studies. BMJ 339:b4471 [Google Scholar]
  48. Koop G, Tole L. 48.  2001. Deforestation, distribution and development. Glob. Environ. Change 11:193–202 [Google Scholar]
  49. Lamla MJ. 49.  2009. Long-run determinants of pollution: a robustness analysis. Ecol. Econ. 69:135–44 [Google Scholar]
  50. Lasch C. 50.  1996. The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy New York/London: W.W. Norton289
  51. Levy JI, Chemerynski SM, Tuchmann JL. 51.  2006. Incorporating concepts of inequality and inequity into health benefits analysis. Int. J. Equity Health 5:2 [Google Scholar]
  52. Levy JI, Greco SL, Melly SJ, Mukhi N. 52.  2009. Evaluating efficiency–equality tradeoffs for mobile source control strategies in an urban area. Risk Anal. 29:134–47 [Google Scholar]
  53. Levy JI, Wilson AM, Zwack LM. 53.  2007. Quantifying the efficiency and equity implications of power plant air pollution control strategies in the United States. Environ. Health Perspect. 115:5743–50 [Google Scholar]
  54. Lynch J, Smith GD, Harper S, Hillemeier M, Ross N. 54.  et al. 2004. Is income inequality a determinant of population health? Part 1. A systematic review. Milbank Q. 82:15–99 [Google Scholar]
  55. Magnani E. 55.  2000. The environmental Kuznets curve, environmental protection policy and income distribution. Ecol. Econ. 32:431–43 [Google Scholar]
  56. Matsumura M. 56.  1994. Coercive conservation, defensive reaction, and the commons tragedy in northeast Thailand. Habitat Int. 18:3105–15 [Google Scholar]
  57. Matthews TL. 57.  2010. The enduring conflict of “jobs versus the environment”: local pollution havens as an integrative empirical measure of economy versus environment. Sociol. Spectr. 31:159–85 [Google Scholar]
  58. Mikkelson GM, Gonzalez A, Peterson GD. 58.  2007. Economic inequality predicts biodiversity loss. PLOS ONE 2:5e444 [Google Scholar]
  59. Mohai P, Pellow D, Roberts JT. 59.  2009. Environmental justice. Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour. 34:1405–30 [Google Scholar]
  60. Morello-Frosch R, Jesdale BM. 60.  2006. Separate and unequal: residential segregation and estimated cancer risks associated with ambient air toxics in U.S. metropolitan areas. Environ. Health Perspect. 114:3386–93 [Google Scholar]
  61. Morello-Frosch R, Lopez R. 61.  2006. The riskscape and the color line: examining the role of segregation in environmental health disparities. Environ. Res. 102:181–96 [Google Scholar]
  62. Nannestad P. 62.  2008. What have we learned about generalized trust, if anything?. Annu. Rev. Polit. Sci. 11:1413–36 [Google Scholar]
  63. 63. OECD (Organ. Econ. Coop. Dev.) 2011. Divided We Stand: Why Inequality Keeps Rising Paris: OECD (Organ. Econ. Coop. Dev.)
  64. 64. OECD (Organ. Econ. Coop. Dev.) 2014. United States: Tackling High Inequalities and Creating Opportunities for All. Paris: OECD (Organ. Econ. Coop. Dev.)
  65. Olson M. 65.  1965. The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press
  66. Ostrom E. 66.  1998. A behavioral approach to the rational choice theory of collective action: presidential address, American Political Science Association, 1997. Am. Polit. Sci. Rev. 92:11–22 [Google Scholar]
  67. Ostrom E. 67.  2008. Frameworks and theories of environmental change. Glob. Environ. Change 18:2249–52 [Google Scholar]
  68. Pandit R, Laband DN. 68.  2009. Economic well-being, the distribution of income and species imperilment. Biodivers. Conserv. 18:3219–33 [Google Scholar]
  69. Pastor M, Morello-Frosch R, Sadd J. 69.  2005. The air is always cleaner on the other side: race, space, and ambient air toxics exposures in California. J. Urban Aff. 27:2127–48 [Google Scholar]
  70. Peluso NL. 70.  1993. Coercing conservation? The politics of state resource control. Glob. Environ. Change 3:2199–217 [Google Scholar]
  71. Piketty T. 71.  2014. Capital in the Twenty-First Century Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, Harvard Univ. Press696 1st ed.
  72. Qu B, Zhang Y. 72.  2011. Effect of income distribution on the environmental Kuznets curve. Pac. Econ. Rev. 16:3349–70 [Google Scholar]
  73. Ravallion M, Heil M, Jalan J. 73.  2000. Carbon emissions and income inequality. Oxf. Econ. Pap. 52:651–69 [Google Scholar]
  74. Ringquist EJ. 74.  2005. Assessing evidence of environmental inequities: a meta-analysis. J. Policy Anal. Manage. 24:2223–47 [Google Scholar]
  75. Rothman DS. 75.  1998. Environmental Kuznets curves—real progress or passing the buck? A case for consumption-based approaches. Ecol. Econ. 25:2177–94 [Google Scholar]
  76. Rupasingha A, Goetz SJ, Debertin DL, Pagoulatos A. 76.  2004. The environmental Kuznets curve for US counties: a spatial econometric analysis with extensions. Pap. Reg. Sci. 83:407–24 [Google Scholar]
  77. Scruggs LA. 77.  1998. Political and economic inequality and the environment. Ecol. Econ. 26:259–75 [Google Scholar]
  78. Slottje D, Nieswiadomy M, Redfearn M. 78.  2001. Economic inequality and the environment. Environ. Model. Softw. 16:183–94 [Google Scholar]
  79. Somanathan E, Prabhakar R, Mehta BS. 79.  2007. Collective action for forest conservation: does heterogeneity matter?. Inequality, Cooperation, and Environmental Sustainability J-M Baland, P Bardhan, S Bowles 246–73 Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  80. Sønderskov KM. 80.  2008. Environmental group membership, collective action and generalised trust. Environ. Polit. 17:178–94 [Google Scholar]
  81. Sønderskov KM. 81.  2011. Explaining large-N cooperation: generalized social trust and the social exchange heuristic. Ration. Soc. 23:151–74 [Google Scholar]
  82. Stern DI. 82.  2004. The rise and fall of the environmental Kuznets curve. World Dev. 49:4431–455 [Google Scholar]
  83. Subramanian SV. 83.  2004. Income inequality and health: what have we learned so far?. Epidemiol. Rev. 26:178–91 [Google Scholar]
  84. Templet PH. 84.  1995. Equity and sustainability: an empirical analysis. Soc. Nat. Resour. 8:6509–23 [Google Scholar]
  85. Tonn B. 85.  2007. Determinants of futures-oriented environmental policies: a multi-country analysis. Futures 39:7773–89 [Google Scholar]
  86. Torras M. 86.  2005. Income and power inequality as determinants of environmental and health outcomes: some findings. Soc. Sci. Q. 86:1354–76 [Google Scholar]
  87. Torras M. 87.  2006. The impact of power equality, income, and the environment on human health: some inter-country comparisons. Int. Rev. Appl. Econ. 20:11–20 [Google Scholar]
  88. Torras M, Boyce JK. 88.  1998. Income, inequality, and pollution: a reassessment of the environmental Kuznets curve. Ecol. Econ. 25:2147–60 [Google Scholar]
  89. Uslaner EM. 89.  2000. Producing and consuming trust. Polit. Sci. Q. 115:4569–90 [Google Scholar]
  90. Uslaner EM. 90.  2002. The Moral Foundations of Trust Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press
  91. Van Lange PAM, Vugt MV, Meertens RM, Ruiter RAC. 91.  1998. A social dilemma analysis of commuting preferences: the roles of social value orientation and trust. J. Appl. Soc. Psychol. 28:9796–820 [Google Scholar]
  92. Veblen T. 92.  1934. Theory of the Leisure Class New York: Modern Library404
  93. Vona F, Patriarca F. 93.  2011. Income inequality and the development of environmental technologies. Ecol. Econ. 70:2201–13 [Google Scholar]
  94. Wilkinson R. 94.  2001. Mind the Gap: Hierarchies, Health and Human Evolution New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press
  95. Wilkinson RG, Pickett KE. 95.  2006. Income inequality and population health: a review and explanation of the evidence. Soc. Sci. Med. 62:71768–84 [Google Scholar]
  96. Wisman JD. 96.  2011. Inequality, social respectability, political power, and environmental devastation. J. Econ. Issues 0:4877–900 [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-031914-122646
Loading
/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-031914-122646
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Review Article
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error