Welfare state decommodification and population health.

ABSTRACT: A generous welfare state decommodifies social relations and frees citizens from relying excessively on markets. We argue that decommodification is associated with population health in two ways: directly, as it provides better social protection to households and indirectly, as it mitigates health-damaging labour market polarization and reduces the incidence of labour market risks. Using time-series cross-sectional quantitative analysis for 21 OECD countries from 1971 to 2010, we observe a negative relationship between decommodification and the age-standardized death rate. We then analyze three correlates of decommodification-income redistribution, labour market polarization and the reduction of labour market risk incidence-and find that only the latter two are associated with population hea

SUBMITTER: Jacques O 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9432727 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature