20The Guardian | Friday 13 March 200921

The Guardian | Friday 13 March 2009

Snapshot The income gap

Inequality: mother of all evils?

2000

1998

139

More money won’t fix broken Britain, but sharing the money could. That is the conclusion of The Spirit Level,a groundbreaking study which concludes inequality is at root of all society’s problems, from violent crime toteenage pregnancy. On these pages Tom Clark presents the evidence so you can make up your own mind

1

2

Economicdivides
Socialwounds

How many times richer are therichest ﬁfth than the poorest ﬁfth

This combined score (right) tots up 10
social sicknesses – among them homicide, infant mortality and lack of trust– counting each as equally important.
The chart shows that, overall, unequalcountries have more problems. On theright hand page we focus on several of
the problems that feed into the score,and consider them separately.

1991

136

US

Portugal

Odd couples

1987

Japan and Sweden are chalk and cheesesocieties. Sweden has a big welfare state
and a progressive stance on women’s rights,
whereas in Japan the government is a small
spender by international standards andtraditional gender divides remain important.
But in both countries incomes are unusually
evenly spread, and the chart reveals that bothsuffer from fewer social problems than otherindustrial societies.

121

Portugal

UK

GreeceFranceCanadaGermany

Denmark

Fewer problems

116

Australia

Austria
Italy

Belgium

SwedenJapan

More equal

1983

107

1985

112

1980

1984

107

1974

100

1979

101

WilsonCallaghan
1975

97

1976

97

1977

95

1978

95

133

133

1989

130
1988

128

Unequal societies record around three times
more mental illness than equal ones. Anxiety
disorders and addictions are among the conditions most closely linked to the income gap.
Is it just that diagnosis is more common in
the English speaking world? Almost certainly
not. Although cultural differences can neverbe eliminated, the data mostly comes fromWorld Health Organisation diagnostic tests
which ask comparable questions in different
countries and then deploy common criteria toassess rates of mental illness. In unequal societies, such as Britain and the US, psychiatricprescriptions are also particularly high.

Stratified societies
Punishing attitudes

Is it just differences in crime? In small partyes, as crimes such as murder are more common in unequal countries. But only 12% of therise in US incarceration since 1980 is down tocrime, and the recent doubling of England’s
prison population has mostly occurred whilecrime has been declining. The real explanation is that sentences are harsher in unequalcountries. Separate analysis shows that moreunequal American states more often retain
the death penalty.

1982

104103
pension. Under Margaret Thatcher(1979-90) the income gap widened to achasm, as top pay raced ahead and mostbenefits were frozen. Tax and benefitchanges alone account for about a thirdof the total increase.
During the early 1990s recession­inequality levelled off for a time, butwith recovery it soon picked up again.
New Labour has funnelled money
towards the poorest, lifting many­children and pensioners out of poverty
and closing the income gap between themiddle and the poor. But, in Peter Mandelson’s phrase, the party was intensely
relaxed about the wealthy, and, perhaps
as a result, they have raced ever further
ahead of the middle. The combined
effect has been to leave ­inequality
broadly stable. By 2006, the most recent

4

The price ispaid by themiddle class
too

British inequality index
1974 = 100

1996

132

Percent with any mental illness
US25

Canada20

Percent obese
US30

In unequal countries more than twice as
many adults are obese.

UK

New ZealandFranceNetherlands

15

Belgium
10
Germany

Spain
Italy

Japan
5

Wider income gaps
Wider waists

GreeceAustralia

More equal

More unequal

Prisoners per 100,000 (log scale)

400
Singaporeyear for which data is available, it wasclose to a record high.
Just as the financial crisis has stoked
up resentment about top pay, the Spirit
Level provides new grounds for moving
beyond the New Labour logic that holds
there is no need to worry about overall
inequality, as distinct from poverty.
The results may be of most obvious
interest to the egalitarian left, but theyshould also worry liberals concernedwith equal opportunity. For social
mobility turns out to be underminedby income inequality – poor youngsters
find it easier to climb the social ladderwhen there is less distance to travel.
Nor can more progressive Tories – whoare ­frantically hunting out new ways torepair the social fabric – afford to ignore
the analysis.

It is hardly news that being poor is associated with disadvantage, but the real
twist in the Spirit Level is its claim thatthe affluent also miss out in unequal
societies. The chart on the right provides one piece of evidence. It records
the literacy scores in four ­countries indescending order of inequality: US, UK,Belgium and Finland.
The chart shows that in all four
­countries people born of more educatedparents are more literate than thosefrom uneducated homes. No surprise
there, nor in the fact that the effect ofparental education on reading is mostmarked in the most unequal societies –thus the slope of the line is steeper for
American than Finnish people. Morestrikingly, though, the chart also showsthat even those from the most highly

IsraelNew Zealand
UK
CanadaPortugal
Spain
FranceAustralia
Austria
Italy
Switz.
SwedenGermany

150

Finland
Norway50

Japan

Belgium

IrelandNetherlands

Denmark
Greece

20

1981

105
Thatcher

135

Blair

1994

More unequal

3135

136

2003

UKIs it down to national diets? No. Swedes are
known for meatballs and Belgians for chocolates and waffles, yet both are trimmer thanthe less equal Greeks, who get little benefit
from their famed Mediterranean food. Withineach rich country there is a marked link
between low social status and obesity, andFinnish research has established that people
who eat to deal with anxiety are more likely
to reach for junk food. There is also evidence
that those afflicted by chronic stress are
particularly likely to deposit fat on the belly,
where it does most damage.

20

Reproducing deprivation
Teen pregnancies

Births per 1,000 women aged 15-19 years

FinlandGermany

Denmark
Belgium
Norway10Australia

Ireland

New ZealandAustria

Portugal

FranceCanada
Spain

Netherlands
Sweden

Italy
Switzerland

Japan0More equal

More unequal

US50

US

Spain and Portugal are Mediterranean neighbours with many cultural connections andclose parallels in their recent history – both
democratised in the 1970s after the fall ofauthoritarian regimes. One difference is that
Spain is the more ethnically diverse, anddiversity is sometimes said to strain social
solidarity. But Spain is mid-table in theinequality league while Portugal is near thetop. And the chart shows that the Portugueseside of the Iberian peninsula has many moresocial problems.

Switzerland

Netherlands

2004

136

1993

1995

Prison populations are up to eight times
bigger in stratified societies as in equal ones.

Odd couples

Spain

135

138

2002

1986

New ZealandIreland

1992

140

2005

137

1997

Inflated inequality
Depressed populations

US

NorwayThat Britain has seen inequality rise
since the 1980s is widely appreciated, but it is less well known that the­widening of the income gap was thesharpest in the developed world. Thisseries from the Institute for Fiscal Studies ­measures the spread of incomes overtime. It is measured using the so-called
Gini coefficient, with its value for eachyear expressed as a proportion of thereading for 1974. The fact inequality rose
more rapidly than elsewhere in Europe­suggests the rise was partly down topolitical decisions as opposed to global
forces such as trade or technology.
The chart shows how inequality wascompressed during the 1974-79 Labour
government, an economically ­turbulent
era, but also a time of ­egalitarian
incomes policies and increases in theUK

Australia

New ZealandItalyGreece

Combined social problem score

Finland

The wideninggap
How the divide
opened up

8.5

7.2
6.8 6.8 7.0

Israel6.7

6.1 6.2

Ireland

Switzerland

CanadaFranceSpain

Netherlands

5.2

5.6 5.6 5.7
5.3 5.6

Germany

4.6 4.8

Austria

Denmark

SwedenNorway8.0

Belgium

4.3

3.7 3.9 4.0

Finland

3.4

Japan

Who is the unfairest of them all? Thechart shows Britain is near the top ofthe table. The number for each country
shows how many times more income
the richest fifth have than the poorest.
The UK ratio of 7.2:1 is one of the highest
in the free world. Other market economies – such as Finland and Japan – have
only half as much inequality.
Britain is now used to being unequal,
run for years on the assumption thatrising prosperity at the top would even-

Income gaps

139

Major

135

tually benefit all. Getting richer used tomake societies healthier and happier.
The Spirit Level – a new book by Richard
Wilkinson and Kate Pickett – claims thisis no longer true for developed countries. The wealth of nations has little
bearing on the great list of social evils
examined. But in (almost) every casethere is a link with inequality.
Take health. The (unequal) Americans have one third more income thanthe (equal) Japanese, and yet they die
nearly five years earlier. It is wellestablished that the bottom of theheap is an unhealthy place to be. But
the Spirit Level shows that inequality
does damage right up the social scale.
What is true of individual sickness also
applies to social diseases, such as illiteracy and crime. Unequal societies havemore prison, more mental illness andmore illiteracy – often many times more.

19992006

as measured by the Ginicoeﬃcient is 40% higher
than it was in 1974

2001

138

1990

More problems

Income gap
league table
UK nudging top

Inequality in 2006

141

More equal

More unequal

Economically polarised societies see up to
10 times more births to teenagers than thosethat are more equal.
Is it down to moral or religious culture? Itseems unlikely, not least because religion cancut both ways – bringing pressures for sexual
abstinence but also discouraging abortion. If
that bar increases the prevalence of teenage
births in unequal Catholic countries, suchas Portugal and Ireland, it seems not to insomewhat more level societies, such as Spain.
In pious America abstinence campaigns such
as True Love Waits enjoy a high profile andyet teenage births are far in excess of those in
secular Europe.

40

UK

30

New ZealandPortugal

Canada20

Australia

Ireland
Norway10Austria
Belgium

Germany
FranceSpain
Denmark

FinlandJapan
0

Sweden Netherlands

Greece
Italy

Switzerland

More equal

More unequal

Equality lowers death rates for allsocial classes
Deaths per 1,000 working-age men,historic data

Literacy scores are higher for everyone
in more equal countries

323
319
318

275
265

Finland

312

Belgium

246

UK

233

US

Least educated parents

scores from theinternational adultliteracy survey

Most educated parents

educated families are more literate in
the more equal countries. At every levelof parental education, the rank ordering of countries is preserved – withthe more equal countries doing better.
Cross-national comparisons in mortality also suggest the higher classes pay
a price for inequality. The chart on theright, for instance, shows death rates forworking age men in (unequal) Britain
are more graded by social class than in(equal) Sweden. But it also shows death
rates are higher overall, including for thetop social class. Exactly the same thingis true when infant mortality rates in
Britain and Sweden are compared.
Could it all be down to differences inhealth and education systems?
It seems unlikely, though with­education it can be hard to unpick causefrom effect because more equal countries invest more. With healthcare, theinternational statistics suggest extra
expenditure has almost no effect on
average life expectancy. Besides, theidea that ­inequality increases mortality for the rich as well as the poor isnot some quirk of the countries wehave focused on. The Spirit Level looks

7.8

4.8

5.3
3.7

England& Wales Sweden

England& Wales Sweden

Lowest social class

Top social classright across the range of poor and rich
American ­counties, and discovers thatwhile living in rich counties is always
healthier, residents in unequal states
live less long than those living in equallyrich ­counties in more equal states.
Exactly why the affluent also sufferfrom inequality is still unproven, but
one possibility is that an unequal ­society
creates a great fear of losing social
standing, a fear which takes its toll on
everybody.
Leader comment, page 34 ≥The Spirit Level
Why More Equal­Societies Almost
Always Do Better, byRichard Wilkinson
and Kate Pickett, isPublished by Allen
Lane, price £20. To
order a copy for £18
with free UK p&p go
to guardian.co.uk/
bookshop, or call
0330 333 6846. You
can see more of theevidence from thebook on the websiteof the Equality Trust,
www.equalitytrust.
org.uk