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Tag Archives: cross-national research
Social Progress – A League Table
Strange though it is to say, but alternatives to GDP are becoming fashionable. This week saw the launch of a new measure of ‘social progress’ on which to rank countries – and perhaps surprisingly, Britain did really rather well, not … Continue reading
British and U.S. Inequality Over the Lifecourse: An Important New Report
Ben and I both attended the Social Change Harvard-Manchester Initiative (SCHMi) summer institute in 2010, a joint program between the University of Manchester and Harvard. A core group of SCHMi researchers just released a report, authored by Rourke O’Brien (also … Continue reading
Posted in Blog posts
Tagged cross-national research, education, income dispersion, welfare
1 Comment
Converging Income Inequality in Brazil and the United States: Some Uncomfortable Realities
Professor Fernando Luiz Lara from the University of Texas at Austin discusses the political and social dimensions of changing income inequality in Brazil and the United States. The US will become as unequal as Brazil. And that bothers both societies. As we … Continue reading
Microclass mobility (and its critics)
A few weeks ago I blogged about the idea of looking at class inequality in terms of ‘microclasses’ – that is, instead of looking at ‘big class’ inequality (e.g. professionals vs. manual workers), we look at ‘microclass’ inequality (e.g. welders … Continue reading
The positive and negative consequences of the welfare state
In a previous post, I argued that people had exaggerated the extent to which public support for the benefits system had fallen in Britain. Here, I want to look at another aspect of this that also came out recently – … Continue reading
When the insecure are not the disadvantaged
Amidst all the other excitements of the summertime, you might have missed a couple of significant papers by top scholars in top American journals. So just to mentally prepare you for the autumn – don’t worry, it’s not here yet! … Continue reading
Healing the economy by making it more equal
In the second of three posts on ‘Increasing Inequality: Causes, Consequences and the Great Recession’, Robert de Vries discusses whether we can work our way out of economic crisis while still reducing inequality. As I said last week, plenty of … Continue reading
Riots, demonstrations and welfare cuts
Some people just aren’t bothered by welfare cuts. If the cuts don’t affect you personally, and you only discuss them in terms of abstract principles and ‘dependency culture’, then the cuts are distant; the stuff of politicians’ rhetoric and newspaper … Continue reading
Posted in Blog posts
Tagged crime, cross-national research, economic downturn, poverty, welfare payments
2 Comments
The work ethic in generous welfare states
A few weeks ago I asked ‘has the work ethic declined because of generous welfare states?’, looking at trends in the work ethic over time. In this (slightly delayed!) conclusion to the piece, I go on to compare the work … Continue reading
The ‘nothing for something’ benefits system
Some phrases just stick. While British politicians often bemoan the ‘something for nothing’ culture in the benefits system, somehow the other side of this has been missed. Yet there are people who contribute to the welfare state for decades, and … Continue reading
