Kate Pickett

Richard G. Wilkinson

Everyone knows that the poor in rich societies are more likely to have shorter, less healthy, lives, to do less well at school and to end up on the wrong side of the law. But The Spirit Level goes further than this, to demonstrate for the first time that a whole range of social problems - from poor health to educational failure, from mental illness to obesity, from drug addition to violence, from teenage births to the weakening of community life - share one overwhelming feature: they are all several times more common in more unequal societies. The evidence that bigger income differences create more problems is conclusive. And rather than affecting just the poor, inequality reduces the quality of life for everyone in less equal. This groundbreaking work book, based on 30 years research by two of the UK's leading social epidemiologists, provides a powerful and fascinating new perspective on the social failings of rich societies. In light of their findings government policy will need serious rethinking. Philip Birch, Assistant Editor, on The Spirit Level: 'This is one of the most interesting and important books I have ever read. It is driven by a simple idea: that inequality is the root cause of all societies' ills. It doesn't matter if the average level of income is very low or very high, it is the gap between rich and poor that is important. It is why, when polled, more Indonesians, Vietnamese, Finnish and Japanese will claim to be more happy than Brits and Americans. And it isn't just the poorest in the most unequal societies that suffer but the richest too. In London on the one hand we hear regularly about teenagers from poorer communities stabbing each other, but on the other more and more apparently successful, university educated, richer young people suffer from anxiety, depression and are open to casual drug use than ever before. Violence, crime, low educational achievement, poor health; and status anxiety and the misery of having too much money and too much choice go hand in hand, because of inequality. This is not necessarily a new idea but it is proved here for the first time. The graphs are quite remarkable.'

Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better

The Spirit Level

Richard Wilkinson

Why do we mistrust people more in the UK than in Japan? Why do Americans have higher rates of teenage pregnancy than the French? What makes the Swedish thinner than the Greeks? The answer: inequality. This groundbreaking book, based on years of research, provides hard evidence to show: - How almost everything - from life expectancy to depression levels, violence to illiteracy - is affected not by how wealthy a society is, but how equal it is - That societies with a bigger gap between rich and poor are bad for everyone in them - including the well-off - How we can find positive solutions and move towards a happier, fairer future Urgent, provocative and genuinely uplifting, The Spirit Level has been heralded as providing a new way of thinking about ourselves and our communities, and could change the way you see the world.

Why Equality is Better for Everyone

"Why are people more relaxed and at ease with each other in some countries than others? Why do we worry so much about what others think of us and often feel social life is a stressful performance? Why is mental illness three times as common in the USA as in Germany? Why is the American dream more of a reality in Denmark than the USA? What makes child well-being so much worse in some countries than others? As The Inner Level demonstrates, the answer to all these is inequality. Wilkinson and Pickett describe how these responses to hierarchies evolved, and why the impacts of inequality on us are so severe. In doing so, they challenge the conception that humans are inescapably competitive and self-interested. They undermine, too, the idea that inequality is the product of "natural" differences in individual ability. This book draws together many of the most urgent problems facing societies today, but it is not just an index of our ills. It demonstrates that societies based on fundamental equalities, sharing and reciprocity generate much higher levels of well-being, and lays out the path towards them"--

How More Equal Societies Reduce Stress, Restore Sanity and Improve Everyone's Well-being

The Inner Level

This eye-opening UK bestseller shows how one single factor--the gap between its richest and poorest members--can determine the health and well-being of a society. The authors also outline a new political outlook in which a shift from self-interested consu

Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger

Ser pobre en una sociedad rica es casi garantía de infelicidad. Pero, ¿es feliz el rico que vive en una sociedad rica? La respuesta: la desigualdad es la causa fundamental de los males de todas las sociedades. Este es un libro pionero, basado en treinta años de investigación, viene a demostrar que las sociedades más desiguales son negativas para casi todas las personas que viven en ellas.

Kate Pickett

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