Two papers focus in greater detail on the political sociology of health inequalities. Julia Lynch critically evaluates how domestic norms and institutions shape political discourse and programs addressing health inequalities. She demonstrates that the discourse on health inequalities effectively mobilizes support for reforms addressing some health inequalities, but also constrains available options for other, more fundamental reforms. Sigrun Olafsdottir analyzes cross-national variation in public satisfaction with domestic health care systems and explores linkage between public satisfaction and health inequalities.
The other two papers provide novel evidence on the impact of welfare state institutions and the business cycle on healthy ageing and mortality. Comparing 11 European countries, Philipp Hessel and Mauricio Avendano find evidence that higher aggregate unemployment rates prior to retirement result in worse health among older Europeans. This effect appears to be mitigated by generous unemployment benefits. Exploiting variation in labor market conditions and unemployment benefit generosity across U.S. states, Clemens Noelke and Jason Beckfield show that the adverse effect of involuntary job loss on mortality among older workers is significantly larger during labor market downturns, but they find no evidence that generous unemployment benefits have protective effects.
