The Spirit Level: is income equality the sole solution?
Vidhya Alakeson
Earlier this week, the ippr hosted a seminar with Richard Wilkinson, author of The Spirit Level. Wilkinson presented data set after data set to make one basic point: more equal societies have better social outcomes such as rates of mental illness and teenage pregnancy, not just for those at the bottom but for everyone. A wealthy, well-educated person in Sweden will be healthier and his children will do better at school than a similarly wealthy person in the UK. This is because Sweden is a more equal society than the UK, by which Wilkinson means that the ratio of the incomes of the top 20 percent in society compared to the bottom 20 percent is smaller.
Wilkinson’s theory about why unequal societies have poorer social outcomes stems from evolutionary psychology. He argues that in an unequal society, concerns about status dominate. Those at the bottom of the income distribution have low status which leads to persistent stress which in turn leads to poor social outcomes due to the negative impacts of elevated levels of cortisol, the stress hormone. The impact of cortisol on health, in particular, has been well documented by the World Health Organisation and others as part of the explanation for persistent health inequalities...
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