Richard Wilkinson - The Inner Level - How More Equal Societies Reduce Stress, Restore Sanity and Improve Everyone’s Wellbeing

Richard Wilkinson
and Kate Pickett

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THE INNER LEVEL

How More Equal Societies Reduce Stress, Restore Sanity and Improve Everyones Well-being

For

George and Annie Wilkinson

Sarah Colebourne and Helen Holman

And for the staff of The Retreat, York at the forefront of treating the mentally distressed with respect since 1796

UK | USA | Canada | Ireland | Australia

India | New Zealand | South Africa

Allen Lane is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com

First published 2018

Copyright Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, 2018

The moral right of the authors has been asserted

Cover images: Getty Images

Author photo: Alex Holland

ISBN: 978-0-141-97540-5

Most of the graphs we present in this book are charts linking income inequality to different health and social problems. Some show this relationship across different countries, others across the different states of the USA.

In our previous book, we aimed to present a consistent set of data by always using the same measure of inequality, the same set of countries and so on. As well as our own new analyses, in this book we present graphs and data that have been produced by researchers from all over the world. Each group of researchers has chosen, from official sources, the most appropriate measure of income inequality to use to answer their research questions, which countries or states and what years to include in the analysis, how to measure the outcomes they are interested in, how to analyse the data and draw the graphs. In each case, the researchers have carefully described their methods in the peer-reviewed journals and official reports that we use; all of these are included in the reference section at the back of this book and many are freely available online. Where possible, and when the data have been available publicly or through the kindness of other researchers, we have re-drawn graphs to be as easy to read as possible. All of the graphs we show come from reputable sources, almost all of them from academics publishing in peer-reviewed journals, and all of our own new analyses have also been peer-reviewed.

Although readers will see that there are differences in the countries studied, the years for which data are reported and the measures used, the most remarkable feature of this variation is that the overall picture we see is so consistent.

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Humans act along two dimensions of behaviour: dominance/submissiveness and warmth/hostility

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Life expectancy levels off at higher levels of economic development

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Trends in the income share of the richest 1 per cent (World Wealth and Income Database, 2016)

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With the exception of , all the figures are either our own or have been redrawn from the original sources and, on condition that they are credited to the original publications, they can be reproduced without our permission.

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This book has benefitted from three rounds of editing: from Shan Vahidy, Stuart Proffitt and Ben Sinyor. We felt very honoured by the quality and depth of thought each gave to our argument and how it could be expressed more clearly and elegantly. Rather than a few verbal comments and minor corrections to spelling and grammar from a quick read-through, each provided us with detailed notes on almost every page of our manuscript and a long list of more fundamental points to consider. At each stage we felt in good hands, guided to higher professional standards. Theirs are rare skills and we are extremely fortunate that our work received so much of their attention. We are deeply indebted to them.

At the University of York, Kates research group read and commented on draft chapters, giving us great feedback while being gentle with us its not only students who fear their work being read by others! Thank you to Pippa Bird, Deborah Box, Alex Christensen, Holly Essex, Lorna Fraser, Stuart Jarvis, Ben Mallicoat, Madeleine Power, Stephanie Prady, Katie Pybus, Marena Ceballos Rasgado, Noortje Uphoff and Tiffany Yang. We are also particularly indebted to Sean Baine, Danny Dorling and Allison Quick for their thoughtful comments on early drafts, and to our many helpful academic colleagues and their families, too many to name, some of whom have given special support over the past few years. We thank Barbara Abrams, Christo Albor, Dimitris Ballas, Stephen Bezruchka, Karen Bloor, Jonathan Bradshaw, Baltica Cabieses, Helena Cronin, Martin Daly, Danny and Alison Dorling, Frank Elgar, Manuel Antonio Espinoza, Paul Gilbert, Hilary Graham, Sheri Johnson, Ichiro Kawachi, Sebastian Kraemer, Rosie McEachen, Annamarie Mercer, Jon Minton, Martin ONeill, Annie Quick, Hector Rufrancos, Trevor Sheldon, Deborah Smith, Subu Subramanian, Len Syme, Laura Vanderbloemen and John Wright. We also thank our bus family who came together as part of an international expert working group in Bhutan, now part of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance (WE-All): Bob Costanza, Lorenzo Fioramonti, Enrico Giovannini, Ida Kubiszewski, Hunter Lovins, Jacquie McGlade, Lars Mortensen, Kristn Vala Ragnarsdttir, Debra Roberts, Roberto de Vogli and Stewart Wallis you have expanded our thinking and our world.

The graphs shown in our figures reflect the work of a large number of researchers in different countries. We are particularly indebted to those who sent us their original research data so that we could redraw their figures in a consistent format. They are: Richard Layte ().

We are also grateful to current and former staff, volunteers, advisers, board members and trustees of The Equality Trust (www.equalitytrust.org,uk), with special thanks to our co-founder, Bill Kerry, the Chair of Trustees, Sean Baine, and Director, Wanda Wyporska, for campaigning and informing the public about inequality. Thank you to The Equality Trusts many supporters: individuals, affiliated local groups and funders, including the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, the Network for Social Change, Tudor Trust, and the Barry Amiel and Norman Melburn Trust. Director Katharine Round and producer Christo Hird of Dartmouth Films created The Divide, a moving interpretation of our work, which reaches new audiences to tell the story of the impact of inequality: thank you both. Finally we thank everybody who has taken the time to read our work, invited us to speak, spoken encouraging words, or spread the message; we wish we could thank all of you individually, and hope you will continue with us on the journey.