The act of giving and receiving raises well-being: the recipient benefits directly from the present, and also the giver gains indirectly through psychological gratification. A new study published in the journal PNAS now suggests that individuals who share more also live longer.
“What is new about our study is that for the first time we have combined transfer payments from state and family and evaluated the effect”, says Fanny Kluge. The investigators used data for 34 nations from the National Transport Accounts project. For many nations, state and private transfer payments received and given by each individual over their life are added up and introduced in relation to lifetime earnings.
Societies in Western European nations share more often and live long lives.
Sub-Saharan African countries such as Senegal share the smallest percentage of their lifetime income and have the highest mortality rate of all the countries surveyed. Those who share little die earlier. Though South Africa is economically more developed than other African nations, few resources are redistributed; here too, the mortality rate is relatively high. In these countries, the mortality rate of children and young people up to age 20 is also higher than in the other countries studied. “Our analyses suggest that redistribution influences the mortality rate of a country, regardless of the per capita gross domestic product,” says Fanny Kluge.
Western European countries and Japan give a lot to the youngest and oldest and mortality rates are reduced. The countries researched in South America also have high transfer obligations. There, folks share over 60 percent of the average lifetime income with others.
In France and Japan, the two nations with the lowest mortality rates of all of the countries studied, a normal citizen transfers between 68 and 69% of the lifetime income. Here, the danger of dying in the upcoming year is half as large for people over 65 as in China or Turkey, in which between 44 and 48 percent of life earnings is redistributed.
“What I find particularly interesting is that the relationship between generosity and lifetime income that we described does not depend on whether the benefits come from the state or from the wider family,” States Fanny Kluge. Both of these factors cause the population live longer Compared to societies using fewer financial transfers.
Related Journal Article: https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/08/26/1920978117