Unfair wages make you sick

Unfair wages make people sick

11/06/2011

Those who are paid unequally and unfairly have a higher risk of developing diseases such as heart attacks, high blood pressure or depression. This resulted in a scientific study of the researchers Prof. Dr. med. Armin Falk and Prof. dr. Johannes Siegrist. Because subjectively perceived injustice puts workers in permanent stress and stress is known to increase the risk of illness.

Feeling injustice puts workers in stress
Feeling and experiencing injustice increases the risk of disease of workers. For the first time scientists could prove this in an experiment. The consequences are heart disease, depression and hypertension. The more inappropriately a subject was treated in the trial, the higher the risk of suffering a serious illness. Those who are unfairly paid and treated for their gainful employment experience a higher risk of developing the disease, explained study supervisor Armin Falk (scientific economist) and the Düsseldorf medical sociologist Johannes Siegrist. "People who find their pay unfair quickly become stressed“, explains Falk. „In addition, they are more likely to suffer from heart disease, hypertension and depression.“, so the summary.

Both researchers examined in a study work emotions and heart rates of people who were obviously treated unfairly. In addition, the data of the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) were evaluated. SOEP is a representative and repetitive survey of around 12,000 households (around 20,000 people) in Germany. Since 1984, the participants are regularly asked once a year about their health, income and health. The same people and private households are always interviewed. The German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) in Berlin is responsible for collecting the data.

One group works, the other gets more money
In the scientific experiment, the scientists divided a group of 80 students into 12-member teams. The groups consisted of workers and bosses. The employee groups were given leaves with zeros and ones. For exactly 25 minutes, the workers had to count the zeros. Voters were allowed to rest the chief teams and spend the time doing nothing. The more the workers counted zeros, the more money the entire teams could earn. When the work was over, the bosses appeared. Their task was to split the money generated. There was no requirement for this. In most cases, employees were given less money than they expected. This subjectively experienced injustice put most working people in stress. This was measurable by a review of the heart rate. The less wages the workers got, the more varied the heart rate, the higher the stress burden.

Constant stress burdens heart rate variability
Heart rate variability indicates how much the length varies between heartbeat intervals. A healthy organism continuously adjusts the heart rate to requirements. Emotional and physical stress is known to increase heart rate. If the load decreases, the faster heart rate usually subsides. This shows a higher adaptability to stress in a greater variability of the heart rate. However, those who are exposed to a chronic stress, in which there is a consistently higher tension of the cardiovascular system. Accordingly, the vegetative regulation of the organism and thus the adaptability of the body are reduced. The long-term consequences are cardiovascular diseases or manifested depression. "If the feeling of injustice affects the variance of the heart rate over the long term, it can have a negative effect on your health“, explains Falk. If the heart rate is reduced, this may be an early warning of impending heart disease. "When norms are violated, a deep-seated sense of justice is violated," says Siegrist. Rationally, one does not first grasp the injury, but certainly on an emotional level.

The theses of the experiment were confirmed by the socio-economic panel data. Those who call their own income unfair and bad also rate their own physical condition and health as bad. In addition, evaluations show that poorly-paid people are more likely to suffer from cardiovascular diseases, heart attacks, hypertension and depression. (Sb)

To the study leaders: Prof. Dr. med. Johannes Siegrist is a medical sociologist, university lecturer and director of the postgraduate program Public Health at the Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf. Dr. Armin Falk is Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for Economics and Neuroscience and the Laboratory for Experimental Economic Research at the University of Bonn.

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Picture: Günter Havlena