Professor Richard Wilkinson is co-author with Kate Pickett of ‘The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone’ (Penguin 2009).
The book is based on findings from peer-reviewed research and aims to show how disparities in income have material impact on people’s physical, social and psychological well-being. The authors argue that income inequality reduces a country’s performance in a wide range of social and well-being indicators such as trust levels, life expectancy, mental health, crime and incarceration rates, and educational achievement. The thesis, simply put, is that increasing income inequality can result in a weaker society and economy, and can hurt everyone. The appeal is for governments and publics of the world to work towards tempering income disparities through policy and institutional intervention.
Professor Wilkinson will flesh out findings of the book to kick off a discussion on its relevance for Singapore’s socio-economic model. While income disparities have widened in Singapore over the years, what are the ways in which the government and other non-state actors have tried to mitigate the effects of this? How effective have they been? What more might be needed to ensure healthy levels of social mobility and sense of well-being for the general population going forward?