The Impact of Inequality

How to Make Sick Societies Healthier

Richard Wilkinson

paperback

$17.95

Comparing the United States with other market democracies and one state with another, this book offers irrefutable evidence that unequal societies create poor health, more social conflict, and more violence. Richard Wilkinson, a pioneering social scientist, addresses the growing feeling—so common in the United States—that modern societies, despite their material success, are social failures. The Impact of Inequality explains why inequality has such devastating effects on the quality and length of our lives.

Wilkinson shows that inequality leads to stress, stress creates sickness on the individual and mass level, and overall society suffers widespread unhappiness and high levels of violence, depression, and mistrust across the social spectrum. The evidence he presents is incontrovertible: social and political equality are essential to improve life for everyone. Wilkinson argues that even small reductions in inequality can make an important difference—for, as this book explains, social relations are always built on material foundations.

Richard Wilkinson is Professor of Social Epidemiology at the University of Nottingham Medical School, and visiting professor and Associate Director of the International Centre for Health and Society at University College London. He is the author of Unhealthy Societies, Mind the Gap, and Poverty and Progress.