ABSTRACT
What happens in labor markets thus infl uences material deprivation, access to medical progress, acute psychosocial stress, income inequality, and social disintegration: four of the fi ve pathways identifi ed by Cornia et al. (this volume) linking social conditions with mortality. Stated in terms of a different but compatible conceptual framework, labor markets have powerful effects on social stratifi cation, differential exposure (to hazards or risk factors), differential vulnerability, and differential consequences (e.g., of illness): the four generic mechanisms identifi ed by Diderichsen, Evans, & Whitehead (2001) as contributing to social disparities in health. A sanguine view is that labor-market opportunities presented by globalization offer the potential for improving social determinants of health (SDH) by reducing poverty and inequality and improving living standards in a way that is possible only through higher incomes. There are reasons to accept this proposition in some country contexts, but for many of the employed (and of course for the unemployed) it is only part of the story and largely irrelevant to their short-term situations. Notably, worldwide progress in poverty reduction as measured using the World Bank thresholds has been modest: although some countries (such as China and Viet Nam) have made impressive strides (Chen & Ravallion, 2007) poverty has (for instance) increased substantially in sub-Saharan Africa (Chen & Ravallion, 2007) and remained stubbornly high in south Asia (Felipe & Hasan, 2005).
