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Title: Inequality kills in Britain
Author: Anarcho
Date: May 12, 2005
Language: en
Topics: Inequality, United Kingdom
Source: Retrieved on 28th October 2021 from http://www.anarkismo.net/article/471

Anarcho

Inequality kills in Britain

Welcome to modern Britain, where the difference in life expectancy

between the poorest and most affluent parts of the country is now wider

than in Victorian times. Where thousands of people are dying prematurely

in poor inner city areas as the gap between rich and poor in Britain

widens for the past 11 years.

Blair’s government has failed to stem the tide. In February 2001, it

announced national targets to raise life expectancy in the most

disadvantaged areas faster than elsewhere by 2010. Taking 2001 as its

baseline, the government aimed to reduce “by at least 10 per cent the

gap between the fifth of areas with the lowest life expectancy at birth

and the population as a whole.” After four years, the figures are moving

in the wrong direction. The increase in life expectancy in the richer

areas is outrunning that in the poorest.

For men, the gap between those who lived in Glasgow (the local authority

with the lowest life expectancy) and East Dorset (the one with the

highest) rose from 10 to 11 years between 1995–97 and 2001–03. For

women, it increased from 7.8 to 8.4 years. The head of the researchers

who produced the study, George Davey Smith (professor of clinical

epidemiology at the University of Bristol) wrote in the British Medical

Journal: “In a relatively short period, that is a substantial increase.”

The health gap remained stable between 1992–94 and 1995–97 but has been

widening since. The researchers are clear, this gap reflects increases

in the gap between rich and poor. Income and wealth inequalities rose

markedly in the 1980s and have been sustained throughout the 1990s and

into the 2000s. Wealth inequality has increased, with the percentage of

wealth held by the wealthiest 10 per cent of the population increasing

from 47 per cent to 54 per cent and the share of the top 1 per cent

rising from 18 per cent to 23 per cent between 1990 and 2000. The

poorest 10 per cent in society now receive 3 per cent of the nation’s

total income whereas the richest 10 per cent receive more than a

quarter.

In their 1999 study, The Widening Gap, the same authors found the death

rate among people under 65 was two and a half times higher in Glasgow

than in more prosperous areas in southern Britain. If they had the same

health then 71 per cent of the deaths under 65 would have been avoided.

This would have saved more than 10,000 lives. In the words of Professor

Davey Smith: “As health inequalities have worsened since, we can say

that if anything the proportion of premature deaths that might have been

avoided in the worst areas has increased.”