RSA Thursday - The Spirit Level: why more equal societies almost always do better
5th Mar 2009; 13:00
Please right-click button and choose "Save Link As..." to download audio file onto your computer.
Large inequalities of income in a society have often been regarded as divisive and corrosive, and it is common knowledge that in rich societies the poor have shorter lives and suffer more from almost every social problem.
But in their new book The Spirit Level, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett draw upon thirty years' research to demonstrate that more unequal societies are bad for almost everyone within them - the well-off as well as the poor.
They show that almost every modern social and environmental problem - ill-health, lack of community life, violence, drugs, obesity, mental illness, long working hours, big prison populations - is more likely to occur in a less equal society.
Join Richard Wilkinson, Professor of Social Epidemiology, University of Nottingham and Kate Pickett, Senior Lecturer in Epidemiology, University of York, to consider a new approach to tackling the social challenges which, despite material success, continue to beset us.
Get the latest RSA Audio
Download full lecture and Q&A Session (MP3)
(Please right-click link and choose "Save As..." to download file onto your computer.)
iTunes
RSS
Share