Are social democracies better for health than right-wing dictatorships : U-M study

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—A University of Michigan study finds that longevity increased faster under right-wing governments in southern Europe than under social democracies in the Nordic countries. The study, published online in the peer-reviewed journal Social Science and Medicine, examines changes in longevity patterns in eight European countries from 1950 to 2000. The countries studied were Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Portugal and Spain. The five Nordic countries were among the richest market economies in Europe during the period studied, governed mostly by center or center-left coalitions, including social democratic parties, and offering generous, universal health and welfare benefits to their citizens. In contrast, the three southern European nations studied were among the poorest in Europe, with fragmented systems of welfare provision and many years of military or authoritarian right-wing rule. "In spite of the socioeconomic and political differences, and a large gap in 1950 between the five Nordic and three southern nations in levels of health, by 2000 life expectancy at birth converged," said Jose A. Tapia Granados, a researcher at the U-M Institute of Social Research and the author of the study. "Gains in longevity in Portugal and Spain were almost three times greater than gains in Denmark, and about twice as great as those in Iceland, Norway and Sweden.