Inequality and social issues: The chicken or the egg?

The novelty of this book is that income inequality, rather than poverty, is the root of social issues (e.g., health problems, educational attainment gap).

Firstly, they outlined statistical evidence demonstrating the health and index of health and social problems is only positively correlated with income inequality, not the national average income among rich countries. They discovered despite USA is in the leading position of national average income levels, the prevalence of social problems is still significantly higher than less well-off countries, such as Japan. Secondly, they argued that poverty does not account why social issues affect people who are out of poverty within the society. Social class gradients in social issues (e.g., health and educational attainment) ran across from the bottom to the top of society, and income difference also reflects the social hierarchy. Given that academic research reveals income difference is related to health, authors conclude that social class gradients in the social issues are formed based on wealth. They believe the economic capital can be transformed into other forms of capitals, forming habitus that distinguishes and consolidates social class boundaries (Bourdieu, 1977). In the case of the educational attainment gap, it is possible that less well-off people do not believe that investing in education is necessary to maintain or improve social status, and thus are less willing to encourage their children to pursue higher education.

Further, authors also provide psychological explanations for how income inequality has led to prevalence of social issues. They claimed that when society is less equal, people face greater social evaluative threats. Heightened social insecurity and evaluative anxiety not only erode social cohesion, but they also strengthen the desire to achieve higher social status. In a society where mutual trust and reciprocity are low, everyone appears to be fighting to maintain or improve their social status. Therefore, the class divide in social issues is becoming more rigid, and the social class gradient is becoming more acute. With structural and psychological accounts combined, they concluded that "not being wealthy enough" does not adequately explain why social issues occur across social hierarchies within society. The key to overcoming inequalities in a variety of social issues is to close the income gap through redistribution.

Although the stance is valuable in providing alternative perspectives to resolve persistent social issues within societies, authors are suspected to overestimate the weight of income inequality. Firstly, the definition and measure of inequality are questionable. Authors selectively focused on income inequality instead of other indicators, such as wealth (p27). However, later they inconsistently use wealth to explain the emergence of social class gradients in social issues (p.28). Secondly, it seems that researchers are cherry-picking evidence in supporting the positive correlation between social problem index and income inequality. Most of the studies chosen are focused on wealthy western countries. Researchers argue that because developing countries are still struggling to survive, they have not yet reached the point where they should be concerned about inequality. In this case, the interpretation largely dictates evidence, while the income inequality framework's validity should be questioned. Finally, just because there is a positive link does not mean that income inequality is the primary root of social problems. Other factors, such as societal heterogeneity, culture, and history, could also contribute to why social issues affect the entire society. Finally, the solution of income redistribution is of less practical importance. Researchers discovered that equal societies had similar social systems, so they proposed that the best way to build an equal society is to learn and apply policies that have already been implemented. They fail to recognise, however, that the foundation of effective policies is comparable social structures. When we talk about redistributing incomes (e.g., lowering taxes), this policy benefits everyone in an equal society. When this is applied in unequal societies, only the middle or upper social classes benefit because the wealthier one is, the higher the tax burden. Copies of social policies cannot loosen the social structure. More importantly, such solutions exacerbate inequality while also causing more social problems.

To conclude, in considering the social issues, government should not deflect public attention from the rotten structure. However, we should be more sceptical of every piece of information that is presented to us.