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The Price of Inequality

The Price of Inequality In 2009, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett made headlines with The Spirit Level, a ground-breaking book that argued that rising levels of inequality were leading directly to unhappier, unhealthier societies. Three years on, we have decided to look at the latest data and see if their central thesis still holds. Does greater equality benefit everyone? Japan France Sweden UK Germany US Best Worst World Bank Inequality ranking' 28 33 36 41 ........ 25 Life 83.4 81.5 81.4 80.4 80.2 78.5 -......... expectancy Teenage pregnancy (Number of 15-19 births per 1000) 30 33 Obese and overweight adult: males (% of 15+ population) 29.8 ....... 48 57 67.2 67.8 80.5 Obese and overweight adult females (% of 15+ population) 16.2........ 36.9 76.7 47.2 57.1 63.8 ........ 3.4 Infant mortality (deaths per 1,000) 2.3 2.4...... ......... 4.6 6.5 3.4 Murder rate 0.9 1 1.1 1.2 0.4 (per 100,000 population) 4.2 Road fatalities (per 1,000,000 population)" 38 39 51 69 111 Prison population (prisoners per 100,000 population) 1 58 78 85 96 153 743 Poverty rate (% living with less than 50% median income 10 7.2 8.4 8.9 11.3 ...... 15.7 17.3 ...... Income difficulties 16 (% finding it difficult or very difficult to live on income)" 12 17 21 ........ 16 Voting rates (%) 82 78 67 61 60 48 ........ Global Peace Index ranking 14 15 29 40 88 Trust (% who trust others)" 84 69 49 61 Final ranking (based on all social and health measures above)" Japan Sweden Germany France UK USA Disclaimer: We have restricted our datasets to those where the six countries above could be reasonably compared, e.g. although amount of drug use is a good indicator of wider social problems, the UN Office of Drugs and Crime had no data on drug use in Japan. Likewise there is insufficient data on Japan to include it in the UN Child Wellbeing Index. We also omitted anything where those of different political persuasions would have opposing views on whether a high score was a good thing. E.g. high social spending levels are bad if you're right wing and good if you're left wing. The datasets we've chosen are intended to be acceptable indicators of social breakdown regardless of political affiliation. Sources: 1. World Bank - GINI, most recent data used for each country 2. Gapminder.org, varicus sources, 2011 figures 3. World Bank (2007-11) 4. WHO 2010 13. Global Peace Index 2012 7. UNODC (most recent varies by country - either 2009 or 2010) 8. OECD 2009 9. ICPS: http://www.idcr.org.uk/wp- content/uploads/2010/09/WPPL-9-22.pdf percentages, with the highest score 10. OECD Society at a Glance 2011 11. OECD Society at a Glance 2011 12. OECD Society at a Glance 2011 Institute for Economics and Peace 14. OECD Society at a Glance 2011 15. Treating the scores above as 5. WHO 2010 6. United Nations 2011 data as 100% and the lowest as 0%. Where a high score was best, the calculation was reversed.

The Price of Inequality

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In 2009, Richard Wilkinson & Kate Pickett made headlines with 'The Spirit Level', a ground-breaking book that argued that rising levels of inequality were leading directly to unhappier, unhealthier so...

Publisher

New Stateman

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Rosie Roche

Category

Politics
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