Your income can severely impact your health. Women who live
in poor areas of England can expect to live 52.4 years in “good health,”
whereas women in wealthier parts of the country can get even 19 years more
without serious medical problems. For men, the difference was 18 years.
Researchers Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett argue that
the bad health of those who live in poor regions is a direct result of income
inequality:
“The temptation, as always, is to assume that those at the
bottom eat poorly, do little exercise, drink a lot and take drugs. In short,
it’s their fault. But 94% of people on low incomes don’t take drugs, and people
in the richest fifth are actually twice as likely to drink heavily than those
in the poorest fifth. Inconvenient as this may be to some, there isn’t some
inherent character flaw that only afflicts the poor. As researchers around the
world have demonstrated many times, it is the financial gap between rich and
poor that is significant, not their lifestyles.”
Regardless of the reasons, the poor regions of the UK fare
very poorly in comparison with the rest of the world, with shorter healthy life
expectancies than Rwanda or Pakistan.
One in four Europeans are at risk of poverty, an Irish study
on the effects of austerity has warned. The research by Social Justice Ireland
revealed the number of EU citizens in danger of living below the breadline
jumped by seven million to 123 million in the six years to 2013. The report for
advocacy organisation Caritas Europa, said it found 8.4 million people were
added to dole queues in the same period and about one quarter of young people
who wanted to work could not find a job. 7.3 million 15 to 24-year-olds were
classified as Neets - Not in Employment, Education or Training, including 16%
of young people in Ireland, 22% in Italy - the highest rate in the EU - and 21%
in Greece.
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