Economic Inequality: Scoping Review with ☸️SAIMSARA.

Name: SAIMSARA Evidence Object longevity::ECONOMIC_INEQUALITY_PM
Creator: SAIMSARA
License: https://saimsara.com/license/

SAIMSARA

doi:10.62487/saimsarad3689887

SAIMSARA Journal

Machine-Readable Science • ISSN 3054-3991

Economic Inequality: Scoping Review with ☸️SAIMSARA.

Longevity & Public Health

Issue 2, Volume 1, 2026

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DOI: 10.62487/saimsarad3689887

Editorial note

• Last update: 2026-03-28 00:06:23

What is this paper about

This paper shows that economic inequality is not just a background social problem, but a force linked to worse health, weaker trust, more violence, and poorer collective resilience. The full paper is worth reading because it shows how inequality affects real outcomes across medicine, behavior, and society, and why both personal hardship and the perception of unfairness seem to matter.

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to synthesize current research regarding the impacts of objective and perceived economic inequality on individual behavior, health outcomes, societal cohesion, and environmental sustainability. The review utilises 3319 original studies with 66949011 total participants (topic deduplicated ΣN). This evidence map suggests that economic inequality is a prominent cross-domain correlate of worse health, weaker social cohesion, and poorer environmental performance. Particularly salient signals included estimates that up to 45% of under-five mortality in high-burden African settings was attributable to economic inequality, a reported 22% increase in relative risk of child mortality at structural social frontiers, and a 0.58 per 1,000 resident decrease in primary care physician supply per 0.1 Gini increase in one local analysis. Across the mapped literature, inequality was repeatedly associated with infectious disease burden, chronic disease risk, catastrophic health expenditure, violence, reduced trust, and climate inaction, while perceived inequality often appeared especially relevant for distress, sleep, fairness judgments, and prosocial erosion. The pattern overall supports a role for inequality as a systemic condition that shapes both exposure to harm and the capacity to respond, indicating practical value in combining clinical attention to deprivation and financial toxicity with broader social protection and redistributive policy responses. Future research should prioritize longitudinal, context-sensitive studies that jointly measure objective and perceived inequality to clarify mechanisms, identify effect modifiers, and determine which policy levers most consistently reduce inequality-related harms across settings.

Keywords: Subjective economic inequality; Social cohesion; Intergenerational mobility; Health disparities; Environmental quality; Redistributive policies; Prosocial behavior; Unethical behavior; Social comparison; Economic growth

Review Stats

Final search date and database lock: 2026-03-26 23:04:33 CET
Plan: Pro (expanded craft tokens; source: PubMed)
Source: PubMed
Total Abstracts/Papers: 6234
Downloaded Abstracts/Papers: 6234
Included original and non-original Abstracts/Papers (all): 3627
Included original Abstracts/Papers (Vote counting by direction of effect): 3319
Reference Index (links used in paper): 292
Total participants (topic deduplicated ΣN): 66949011

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Reference Index (292)

[1] Economic inequality and conspiracy theories. — https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2022.101358
[2] Economic inequality breeds corrupt behaviour. — https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12610
[3] Subjective economic inequality evokes interpersonal objectification. — https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12740
[4] Economic segregation is associated with reduced concerns about economic inequality. — https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-49778-w
[5] The evolution of economic and political inequality: minding the gap. — https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2022.0290
[6] Economic Inequality and Mental Health: Causality, Mechanisms, and Interventions. — https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-081423-025710
[7] Inequality in People's Minds: An Integrative Psychological Framework of Perceptions of Economic Inequality. — https://doi.org/10.1177/10888683251352048
[8] Children's developing understanding of economic inequality and their place within it. — https://doi.org/10.1111/bjdp.12446

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