The links among social inequality, economic inequality, and health have long been of interest to social scientists, but causal links are difficult to investigate empirically. In particular, studies examining the impact of social status on one’s own health may overlook important effects of inequality on the health of populations as a whole occurring due to negative externalities of social forces. A recent literature on caste, sanitation, and child net nutrition provides an example of one social context where social inequality makes an entire population less healthy. This paper presents new observational analysis of the India Human Development Survey that provides descriptive evidence of this mechanism. We show that, on average, children in rural India are shorter if they live in villages where more people report practicing untouchability—meaning that they enforce caste hierarchies in their interactions with people from the lowest castes. This association is explained by the association between casteism and the prevalence of rural open defecation.

中文翻译：

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社会不平等对印度儿童健康与发展的影响：种姓，环境卫生和儿童身高的案例

社会不平等，经济不平等和健康之间的联系早已引起社会科学家的关注，但因果关系很难凭经验进行调查。特别是，研究社会地位对个人健康的影响的研究可能会忽略不平等对整体人口健康的重要影响，这是由于社会力量的负面外部性而发生的。最近有关种姓，环境卫生和儿童净营养的文献提供了一个社会背景的例子，其中社会不平等使整个人口的健康状况降低。本文介绍了印度人类发展调查的新观察性分析，为这种机制提供了描述性证据。我们显示平均而言，如果印度农村地区的孩子生活在有更多人表示无法接触的村庄，他们的孩子就会矮一些，这意味着他们在与最低种姓的人互动时会强制实行种姓等级制度。种姓与乡村露天排便的流行之间的联系解释了这种联系。