Summary

There is evidence that the health gap is widening and that this widening has followed socio-economic polarisation in Britain. As the poor have become relatively poorer and have become concentrated into particular areas of the country,poor health has similarly become more concentrated both by social group and by area over the last 20 years.

• • Although infant mortality is falling overall, social class differences in infant mortality are clear and are widening. Babies born into poor families are increasingly disadvantaged.

• • The life expectancy gap between social classes is widening and this is not due to changes in social class sizes.

• • Geographical differences in mortality are widening and in relative terms are now larger than ever measured before. The recent growth in area inequalities began around 1980.

• • These widening gaps are real and cannot be attributed to measurement issues or statistical biases. They have real, lethal, meaning for large groups of people living in Britain today.

Over the past two decades, the widening gap in health has been anticipated by a widening gap in terms of a number of other socio-economic measures of well-being:

• • Income: the poorest 10% of single adult households were, on average, £208 per year worse off in 1995/96 than in 1979; the richest 10% became £6,968 per year richer in real terms.

• • Poverty: the proportion of households living at below half average income increased from less than 8% in 1977/78 to 24% in 1995/96.

• • Wealth: the distribution of wealth in the UK hardly changed between 1983 and 1994. The most wealthy 1% have consistently owned around 20% of the total marketable wealth.

• • Unemployment: between 1981 and 1991 unemployment and underemployment grew fastest in the areas of Britain which now have the worst and worsening health.