It is theorized that income inequality is an indicator of status inequality and should therefore be associated with adverse health outcomes. In this article, we propose a novel way to capture status inequality more directly by measuring the distribution of self-perceived status in a society. We investigate whether status inequality in a society is associated with depression in the population. We show, first, that there is only a moderate association between subjective social status inequality and income inequality. Second, we provide evidence that depression is higher in countries with higher status inequality and that our novel measure of status inequality is more strongly associated with depression than the conventionally used income inequality measure. However, results are susceptible to influential country cases.

从理论上讲，收入不平等是地位不平等的一个指标，因此应该与不利的健康结果相关联。在本文中，我们提出了一种通过衡量社会中自我感知地位的分布来更直接地捕捉地位不平等的新方法。我们调查社会中的地位不平等是否与人口抑郁有关。首先，我们表明主观社会地位不平等与收入不平等之间只有中等程度的关联。其次，我们提供的证据表明，在地位不平等程度较高的国家，抑郁程度更高，并且我们对地位不平等的新衡量标准与传统使用的收入不平等衡量标准相比，与抑郁症的相关性更强。然而，结果容易受到有影响力的国家案例的影响。