Understanding income inequalities in health among men and women in Britainand Finland

The aims of this study were to investigate whether the relationship between income and self-perceived health is similar for men and women in two contr asting welfare states, Britain and Finland; whether the relationship betwee n income and health is accounted for by employment status, education, and o ccupational social class; and whether the association differs when using al ternative ways of measuring income: gross individual and net household equi valent income. Among British and Finnish men, low household and low individ ual income were related to poor health, even after adjusting for employment status, education, and social class. The adjusted relationship between ind ividual income and health was stronger for British than Finnish men. Among British and Finnish women, net household equivalent income was strongly rel ated to health, but after adjusting for employment status, education, and s ocial class this relationship became weaker for British women and practical ly disappeared for Finnish women. For British women the association between income and health differed strongly depending on the income measure used; gross individual income had almost no effect on health. These results indic ate that the association between health and income has no threshold in the sense that only people in poverty have poorer health than others. In furthe r studies of income and health, household equivalent income should be used as the principal measure of income with adjustments for employment status, and men and women should be studied separately.