39 Inequality kills
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Daniel Dorling
Abstract
The murder rate tells us far more about society and how it is changing than any particular murder tells us about the individuals involved.
For most people the chances of being murdered are the same or lower than they were 20 years ago. For young men in the poorest parts of the country, they are considerably higher. Murder is like a disease – it affects different groups disproportionately, and its cause is an unequal society.
Inequality kills. It kills indirectly, of course, by robbing people of protection from physical and mental illness. But it also kills directly by increasing the rates at which people are murdered.
Between January 1981 and December 2000, over 13,000 people were murdered in Britain – a rate of just under two murders per day. But the chances of being a victim vary greatly according to gender and geography. The general rise in murder rates in the UK, with more murders committed in the past 15 years than in the preceding 20-year period, is almost exclusively concentrated amongst men of working age living in the poorest parts of the country. A more detailed look at these figures shows a close relationship between this fact and the rising levels of inequality in Britain since the early 1980s.
Before exploring this relationship further, it is important to understand the role of murder in our growing awareness of broader health inequalities. This connection may seem surprising, but murder is a form of death, just as all health inequalities eventually are, and, increasingly, research is showing that inequalities in health tend to both reflect and be caused by other inequities in society.
Abstract
The murder rate tells us far more about society and how it is changing than any particular murder tells us about the individuals involved.
For most people the chances of being murdered are the same or lower than they were 20 years ago. For young men in the poorest parts of the country, they are considerably higher. Murder is like a disease – it affects different groups disproportionately, and its cause is an unequal society.
Inequality kills. It kills indirectly, of course, by robbing people of protection from physical and mental illness. But it also kills directly by increasing the rates at which people are murdered.
Between January 1981 and December 2000, over 13,000 people were murdered in Britain – a rate of just under two murders per day. But the chances of being a victim vary greatly according to gender and geography. The general rise in murder rates in the UK, with more murders committed in the past 15 years than in the preceding 20-year period, is almost exclusively concentrated amongst men of working age living in the poorest parts of the country. A more detailed look at these figures shows a close relationship between this fact and the rising levels of inequality in Britain since the early 1980s.
Before exploring this relationship further, it is important to understand the role of murder in our growing awareness of broader health inequalities. This connection may seem surprising, but murder is a form of death, just as all health inequalities eventually are, and, increasingly, research is showing that inequalities in health tend to both reflect and be caused by other inequities in society.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- Sources of extracts vii
- Foreword xi
- Acknowledgements xiv
- Introduction 1
-
Inequality and poverty
- Prime suspect: murder in Britain 13
- The dream that turned pear-shaped 31
- The soul searching within New Labour 41
- Unequal Britain 49
- Axing the child poverty measure is wrong 57
-
Injustice and ideology
- Brutal budget to entrench inequality 63
- New Labour and inequality: Thatcherism continued? 65
- All in the mind? Why social inequalities persist 83
- Glass conflict: David Cameron’s claim to understand poverty 93
- Clearing the poor away 97
-
Race and identity
- Ghettos in the sky 103
- Worlds apart: how inequality breeds fear and prejudice in Britain 111
- How much evidence do you need? Ethnicity, harm and crime 115
- UK medical school admissions by ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and sex 121
- Race and the repercussions of recession 125
-
Education and hierarchy
- What’s it to do with the price of fish? 133
- Little progress towards a fairer education system 139
- One of Labour’s great successes 147
- Do three points make a trend? 149
- Educational mobility, England and Germany 155
- Cash and the not so classless society 159
- Britain must close the great pay divide 165
- Raising equality in access to higher education 170
-
Elitism and geneticism
- The Darwins and the Cecils are only empty vessels 189
- The Fabian essay: the myth of inherited inequality 193
- The return to elitism in education 199
- The super-rich are still soaring away 209
-
Mobility and employment
- The trouble with moving upmarket 217
- Britain – split and divided by inequality 221
- London and the English desert: the grain of truth in a stereotype 225
- Are the times changing back? 237
- Unemployment and health 243
-
Bricks and mortar
- Mortality amongst street sleeping youth in the UK 249
- Daylight robbery: there’s no shortage of housing 251
- The influence of selective migration patterns 255
- The geography of poverty, inequality and wealth in the UK and abroad 263
- All connected? Geographies of race, death, wealth, votes and births 291
-
Well-being and misery
- Against the organization of misery? The Marmot Review of Health Inequalities 299
- Inequality kills 307
- The geography of social inequality and health 311
- The cartographer’s mad project 327
- The fading of the dream: widening inequalities in life expectancy in America 333
- The importance of circumstance 339
-
Advocacy and action
- Mean machine: how structural inequality makes social inequality seem natural 347
- Policing the borders of crime: who decides research? 351
- Learning the hard way 357
- When the social divide deepens 363
- Ending the scandal of complacency 365
- Our grandchildren will wonder why we were addicted to social inequality 369
- Mind the gap: New Labour’s legacy on child poverty 373
- Remapping the world’s population: visualizing data using cartograms 379
- If I were king 385
- Bibliography 387
- Index 389
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- Sources of extracts vii
- Foreword xi
- Acknowledgements xiv
- Introduction 1
-
Inequality and poverty
- Prime suspect: murder in Britain 13
- The dream that turned pear-shaped 31
- The soul searching within New Labour 41
- Unequal Britain 49
- Axing the child poverty measure is wrong 57
-
Injustice and ideology
- Brutal budget to entrench inequality 63
- New Labour and inequality: Thatcherism continued? 65
- All in the mind? Why social inequalities persist 83
- Glass conflict: David Cameron’s claim to understand poverty 93
- Clearing the poor away 97
-
Race and identity
- Ghettos in the sky 103
- Worlds apart: how inequality breeds fear and prejudice in Britain 111
- How much evidence do you need? Ethnicity, harm and crime 115
- UK medical school admissions by ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and sex 121
- Race and the repercussions of recession 125
-
Education and hierarchy
- What’s it to do with the price of fish? 133
- Little progress towards a fairer education system 139
- One of Labour’s great successes 147
- Do three points make a trend? 149
- Educational mobility, England and Germany 155
- Cash and the not so classless society 159
- Britain must close the great pay divide 165
- Raising equality in access to higher education 170
-
Elitism and geneticism
- The Darwins and the Cecils are only empty vessels 189
- The Fabian essay: the myth of inherited inequality 193
- The return to elitism in education 199
- The super-rich are still soaring away 209
-
Mobility and employment
- The trouble with moving upmarket 217
- Britain – split and divided by inequality 221
- London and the English desert: the grain of truth in a stereotype 225
- Are the times changing back? 237
- Unemployment and health 243
-
Bricks and mortar
- Mortality amongst street sleeping youth in the UK 249
- Daylight robbery: there’s no shortage of housing 251
- The influence of selective migration patterns 255
- The geography of poverty, inequality and wealth in the UK and abroad 263
- All connected? Geographies of race, death, wealth, votes and births 291
-
Well-being and misery
- Against the organization of misery? The Marmot Review of Health Inequalities 299
- Inequality kills 307
- The geography of social inequality and health 311
- The cartographer’s mad project 327
- The fading of the dream: widening inequalities in life expectancy in America 333
- The importance of circumstance 339
-
Advocacy and action
- Mean machine: how structural inequality makes social inequality seem natural 347
- Policing the borders of crime: who decides research? 351
- Learning the hard way 357
- When the social divide deepens 363
- Ending the scandal of complacency 365
- Our grandchildren will wonder why we were addicted to social inequality 369
- Mind the gap: New Labour’s legacy on child poverty 373
- Remapping the world’s population: visualizing data using cartograms 379
- If I were king 385
- Bibliography 387
- Index 389
