This interdisciplinary approach to social inequality and well-being began, in Part One, with a consideration of a person's early years’ experience, involving a process of maturation and integration of physiological, psychological and social factors. Clearly relative poverty and a person's social capital will, to a greater or lesser extent, provide the resilience for that person to experience a sense of well-being and lead to successful ageing. Lifestyle choices and the support of a healthy community will reduce vulnerability to negative health behaviours. Upstream support from family, schools and community networks is important in promoting self-esteem and psychological health as the individual progresses into the working community. Not everyone has the capacity or opportunity to be employed; however, there are opportunities for meaningful activities beyond the traditional world of work, as noted in Chapters Nine and Thirteen of this book.

Personal well-being is related to the availability of personal, family and community resources. Clearly the economic status of a community will impact on individual health and the community resources to support the more vulnerable people in the community. There have been many references in this book highlighting the link between social gradient and health (Marmot, 2010), which is, to large extent, determined by political processes. The Children and Families Act 2014 gave greater protection to vulnerable children and better support for children affected by family breakdown and for children with special educational needs. The Care Act 2014 was aimed at promoting individual well-being (see Chapter Twenty-two). However, these and many other initiatives delivered by local authority and non-statutory providers have been decimated by reductions in public spending, unprecedented since the Second World War, due to austerity budgets initiated after the collapse of the world economy in 2008. Cuts in the welfare and social care budgets, and more recently, significant reductions in school budgets in real terms are increasing the gap between the rich and the poor (Beatty and Fothergill, 2014). More specifically, the health inequality gap in England ‘is still growing’, with life expectancy, vulnerability to disability and disease worsening in deprived areas of England (Bambra, 2016; Buck, 2017). Continued erosion in household incomes and a rising cost of living are already having an impact on the most vulnerable at the bottom end of the social gradient (Bambra, 2016).