Bullying in schools, obesity and mental health problems are all symptoms of extremes of inequality in society, according to Professor Richard Wilkinson.
The co-author of the widely-acclaimed book, The Spirit Level, told a conference in UCD that inequality corrodes the moral fabric of society. Professor Wilkinson addressed the conference, which took place over two days, by video-link as he was unable to attend due to the disruption of travel by the volcanic ash.
He said that where you have extremes people who have a lot become role models, even though we know from research that after basic needs are met people are not happier by having more money. As a result people feel jealous and alienated, you have envy and violence, revealed in higher rates of crime, including murder, and higher rates of imprisonment.
There are higher levels of anxiety, stress and depression in society, and a sense of a lack of security. In more equal societies there is more trust between people. He pointed out that life was better for the well-off in more equal societies than it was for those in less equal ones, with better public services, lower levels of depression and longer life expectancy.
For example, a Greek child had a better life expectancy at birth than an American child, though Greece had half the GDP per head than the US.
The conference was organised by UCD's Equality World Initiative (EWI) and coincided with the 20th anniversary of the university's Equality Studies Centre. The chair of the EWI Network, Professor Kathleen Lynch, told The Irish Times it came into being when the European Education and Research
Council tendered for a research programme, which was won by the centre's proposal for research around equality.
The programme included a transfer of knowledge component, whereby scholars came from other institutions to UCD, and UCD academics will visit other participating institutions.
One of the scholars who visited UCD as part of the programme is Professor Martha Albertson Fineman from the law department of Emory University. She is the author of a number of books on the family, law and society and the founder and director of the Feminism and Legal Theory (FLT) Project.
She criticised the idea of citizens as autonomous individuals, advocating instead the idea of the “vulnerable subject”.
She pointed out that everyone is dependent at some stage in their lives, and most people at some point have caring responsibilities.
"We should build social policy and law around the idea of the vulnerable subject, and use it to redefine and expand current ideas about state responsibility towards individuals and institutions," she said.
Professor Lynch stressed the need for synergy between social science and law, and for dialogue between academics and social and community activists. She pointed out that the conference brought together academics, social commentators and activists from Ireland, the UK and the US.