Rationale

Physical pain is one of the most severe of human experiences. It is thus one of the most important to understand.

Objective

This paper reports the first cross-country study of the links between physical pain and the state of the economy. A key issue examined is how the level of pain in a society is influenced by the unemployment rate.

Methods

The study uses pooled cross-sectional Gallup data from 146 countries (total N > 1.3 million). It estimates fixed-effects regression equations that control for personal characteristics.

Results

More than a quarter of the world's citizens are in physical pain. Physical pain is lower in an economic boom and greater in an economic downturn. Estimated effect sizes are substantial. Remarkably, increases in pain are borne almost exclusively by women and found principally in rich nations. These findings have paradoxical aspects. The counter-cyclicality of physical pain is not what would be predicted by conventional economic analysis: during an expansion, people typically work harder and longer, and accidents and injuries increase. Nor are the study results due to unemployed citizens experiencing more pain (although they do). Instead, the study's findings are consistent with an important hypothesis proposed recently, using different kinds of evidence, by brain and behavioural-science researchers (e.g., Wiech and Tracey, 2009; Chou et al.; 2016). The hypothesis is that economic worry can create physical pain.

Conclusions

This study provides the first cross-country evidence that the level of physical pain in a nation depends on the state of the economy. Pain is high when the unemployment rate is high. That is not because of greater pain among people who lose their jobs — it extends far beyond that into wider society. The increase in physical pain in a downturn is experienced disproportionately by women.

中文翻译：

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146 个国家的身体疼痛、性别和经济状况

基本原理

身体疼痛是人类最严重的经历之一。因此，这是最重要的理解之一。

客观的

本文报告了关于身体疼痛与经济状况之间联系的首次跨国研究。研究的一个关键问题是失业率如何影响社会的痛苦程度。

方法

该研究使用来自 146 个国家（总 N > 130 万）的汇总横断面盖洛普数据。它估计控制个人特征的固定效应回归方程。

结果

世界上超过四分之一的公民处于身体疼痛之中。经济繁荣时身体疼痛减轻，经济衰退时疼痛加重。估计的效应量是巨大的。值得注意的是，疼痛的增加几乎完全由女性承担，并且主要发生在富裕国家。这些发现具有矛盾的方面。身体疼痛的反周期性并不是传统经济分析所预测的：在经济扩张期间，人们通常会更努力、更长时间地工作，事故和伤害也会增加。研究结果也不是因为失业的公民经历了更多的痛苦（尽管他们确实如此）。相反，该研究的发现与大脑和行为科学研究人员最近使用不同类型的证据提出的一个重要假设一致（例如，Wiech 和 Tracey，2009 年；Chou 等人；2016）。假设是经济担忧会造成身体疼痛。

结论

这项研究提供了第一个跨国证据，证明一个国家的身体疼痛程度取决于经济状况。当失业率高时，痛苦就很大。这并不是因为失业者的痛苦更大——它远远超出了这个范围，延伸到了更广泛的社会。女性不成比例地经历了经济低迷时期身体疼痛的增加。