Graphs and sources

All the statistics in The Spirit Level Delusion are there to be checked. Here are the sources...

Life expectancy

See Chapter 1 of The Spirit Level Delusion and case study.

Source: UN Human Development Report (2006)

Quality of life

See Chapter 3 of The Spirit Level Delusion

Source: The Economist Intelligence Unit’s quality-of-life index, 2005

Homicide (without USA)

See Chapter 4 of The Spirit Level Delusion

The 'link' between inequality and homicide rests on the USA's unusually high murder rate. When this obvious outlier is excluded, the association disappears. A correlation that depends on one outlier is, of course, no correlation at all. 

All this data comes from the 1990s. Portugal's murder rate has since fallen to around the same level as Sweden, further undermining the inequality hypothesis.

Source: United Nations Surveys on Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice Systems (CTS) (1990-2000 average)

Involvement in the community

See Chapter 3 of The Spirit Level Delusion

Source: World Values Survey (go to 'Online data analysis') 

Happiness

See Chapter 3 of The Spirit Level Delusion

Source: World Values Survey (go to 'Online data analysis') 

Happiness against national income

See Chapter 3 of The Spirit Level Delusion

Contrary to Wilkinson and Pickett, there is ample evidence that economic growth benefits the population even at a very high level of development. The happiness survey is one example of this.

Source: World Values Survey (go to 'Online data analysis') 

National income figures: World Bank 2008

Births to women aged 15-19 years

See Chapter 3 of The Spirit Level Delusion

There is no association with inequality for the majority of countries. Rates tend to be somewhat higher in English-speaking countries, but the rate in countries like Hungary, Hong Kong and Singapore suggest that this is not due to inequality. The slightly higher rate in Portugal is more likely to be due to the higher incidence of teen marriages and abortion being illegal when this data was collected.

Source: UNICEF and United Nations

Divorce

See Chapter 3 of The Spirit Level Delusion

Source: Americans for Divorce Reform

Prisoners per 100,000

See Chapter 4 of The Spirit Level Delusion

Source: United Nations Surveys on Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice Systems (CTS) (Ninth edition, or earlier when unavailable)

Recorded crime per 100,000

See Chapter 4 of The Spirit Level Delusion

There is an inverse relationship between inequality and the crime rate. There is also—but not always—an inverse relationship between the prison rate and the crime rate.

Source: United Nations Surveys on Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice Systems (CTS) (Ninth edition, or earlier when unavailable)

Education

See Chapter 9 of The Spirit Level Delusion

The countries of Southern Europe tend to perform least well but the performance of places like Hong Kong and Australia—as well as the lack of any statistically significant association—strongly suggest that inequality is not the cause of this.

Source: The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Combined maths, literacy and science scores (2006)

Government spending on foreign aid

See Chapter 6 of The Spirit Level Delusion

Source: OECD (2008)

Per capita donations to charity

See Chapter 6 of The Spirit Level Delusion.

The trend towards more equal countries giving more in state aid is counter-balanced by the tendency for less equal countries to give more in individual, voluntary donations.

Source: Salaman (1999). See also Charities Aid Foundation (2006)

Sources for other graphs shown in The Spirit Level Delusion:

Inequality: UN Human Development Reports. Same methodology used as in The Spirit Level.

Smoking rates: Nationmaster

Unemployment: UN Human Development Reports.

Alcohol Consumption: World Health Organisation (2004)

Infant mortality: United Nations World Population Prospects (2008) 

Obesity: International Obesity Taskforce 

Recycling: Planet Ark (2004)