Scientists have discovered how consistently low wages are associated with premature death

Persistently low earnings may be associated with an increased risk of premature death and excess mortality, especially when combined with precarious employment.

Low wages have recently begun to be seen as a truly significant health problem: for example, due to low income, people not only cannot afford quality food, but also often do not receive adequate medical care and medicines. However, until now there has been little research on the long-term health consequences of earning a small salary.

This gap was at least partially filled by scientists from the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University in New York (USA). The purpose of their work was to study the association of persistently low-paid work with the risk of premature death. The results of the study are presented in the journal Jama Network.

The sample included 4,002 US residents aged 50-57 years (1,854 were women) who worked for at least three periods in 1992-2004 and 1998-2010. They participated in a study of the health of pensioners, observations continued until 2018. The analysis also took into account socio-demographic factors, gender and the presence of diseases.

A total of 718 people (17.9%) faced so-called precarious employment. 366 participants (9.1%) had received low wages in the past, 1,288 participants (32.2%) had occasionally earned little money, and 2,348 (58.7%) had never received too little money.

“According to the unadjusted analysis, those who never received low wages accounted for 199 deaths per 10,000 person-years; those who periodically received low wages – 208 deaths per 10 thousand person-years; and for those who consistently received low wages, 275 deaths per 10,000 person-years. In models adjusted for key sociodemographic variables, persistently low earnings were associated with higher mortality (hazard ratio 1.35) and excess mortality. Significant rates of excess mortality and increased risk of death were observed in workers with persistently low wages and precarious employment (hazard ratio was 2.18 versus 1.17 for those who earned little but were stable in employment),” the scientists said.

Thus, persistently low income correlates with an increased risk of premature death and excess mortality, especially when combined with precarious employment. If this is a cause-and-effect relationship, then social and economic policies in a country that aim to support low-wage workers (for example, minimum wage laws) could improve mortality rates, the authors of the article concluded.

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