"There was a moment when reading Kate Pickett's new book that I realised I was underlining something on nearly every page. Occasionally it was an exclamation mark, or a star. Other times, she herself was doing something similar. I'm sorry to say that is not a typo, she writes, at one point. And then, in a later chapter, I'm going to have to put this in bold It wasn't stylistic commentary, although The Good Society is well written."
"Pickett came to international prominence with a book she wrote with Richard Wilkinson in 2009, The Spirit Level. That book used a battery of facts to argue that countries with the greatest overall inequality even those that seemed to be richest had the worst levels of health, social cohesion and human capital development. The Spirit Level sold more than 300,000 copies, was translated into 26 languages and was named by the Guardian as one of the 100 most influential books of the 21st century."
Total spending on preventive services for families fell 25% in the decade before the pandemic, reducing early supports for families. Half of children born in Liverpool in 2009–10 had been referred to children's services by age five, signaling acute early vulnerability. In 2023–24 England's local authorities had only 6% of the childcare places needed for children with disabilities, revealing severe supply shortfalls. Comparative evidence links higher overall inequality to poorer health outcomes, weaker social cohesion and reduced human capital even in wealthy nations. Chronic stress from high inequality harms psychological wellbeing. Widespread synthesis shows systemic underinvestment across health, care, education and prisons.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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