THE PURSUIT:

Inequality is bad for your health: A new international report reveals that mental health problems are far worse in 'rich' nations, such as the UK, that are socially unequal - and that individual treatment is not the solution. (Mary O'Hara, 3/11/09, The Guardian)

It has been acknowledged for some time that poverty can be a trigger for poor mental health, but a new study published today by the World Health Organisation (WHO) argues that it is inequality that has the most profound and far-reaching consequences for individuals and wider society. The study, which draws on research from throughout Europe, concludes that mental health difficulties are most pronounced in countries such as Britain, which, although rich, have high levels of income and social inequality. [...]

"There is overwhelming evidence that inequality is a key cause of stress, and also exacerbates the stress of coping with material deprivation," the report says.

"The adverse impact of stress is greater in societies where greater inequality exists and where some people feel worse off than others. We will have to face up to the fact that individual and collective mental health and wellbeing will depend on reducing the gap between rich and poor."

So-called happiness league tables frequently show that people who live in countries without gaping income inequalities between rich and poor - Sweden tends to be at the top of such surveys, with the UK hovering towards the bottom - are generally more content, but Friedli is keen to point out that the WHO research goes "much deeper" than many of the surveys that make the news. [...]

Looking at the trends on physical health outcomes when a country becomes richer - which point to a positive impact on factors such as mortality rates - it found the opposite to be true of mental health. "As countries get richer, rates of mental illness increase." It argues that the level of mental distress among communities "needs to be understood less in terms of individual pathology and more as a response to inequalities involving relative deprivation across society".

The report concludes that high levels of inequality when it comes to "social status" can have a serious impact on how individuals within a society see themselves, and how this manifests itself in their overall mental health. Echoing some of the conclusions reached by the academic Richard Wilkinson in his latest book on inequality, The Spirit Level, the report also concludes that "greater inequality heightens status competition and status insecurity across all income groups and among both adults and children".

The problem isn't just that inequality can feed unhappiness and thereby undermine support for the regime but that, contra free marketeers, inequality has a negative correlation to economic growth, rather than being a necessary evil. On the other hand, the threat of extreme egalitarianism is no less significant than that of extreme inequality. Thus the peculiar genius of the Third Way, which would redistribute and/or force savings of small amounts of wealth from birth and then take advantage of markets to grow that into substantial wealth over a lifetime.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 11, 2009 6:50 AM