Tag Archives: theorising inequality

So should we bother with ‘microclasses’?

Posted on March 14, 2013 by

Earlier in the year I published two blog posts on ‘microclasses’ – the idea that your specific occupation is an important structuring factor for the social world, beyond its position in a broader class. In this post I look back at … Continue reading →

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Is there life after work? The welfare state in a future without jobs

Posted on March 2, 2013 by

Peter Frase argues that liberals are wrong to focus on universal employment: “Forget job creation, we need to do more job killing. Cutting the military budget, reining in the financial sector, and dismantling the prison-industrial complex will destroy many jobs. … Continue reading →

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Microclass mobility (and its critics)

Posted on January 31, 2013 by

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 →

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Classes or ‘microclasses’? The nature of occupational inequality

Posted on January 7, 2013 by

From Bush to Bush. Miliband to Miliband. Kennedy to Kennedy. Churchill to Churchill. There’s no shortage of political dynasties either in the US or UK, where politically powerful parents beget politically powerful children. Likewise, we often observe how doctors’ children become … Continue reading →

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How much is health care worth to the poor?

Posted on October 17, 2012 by

In my very first Inequalities blog post I considered the argument that the United States has a more generous safety net for the poor than conventional comparisons with European states would suggest because we spend so much on public health … Continue reading →

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A More Perfect Union: What do New Yorkers owe Texans?

Posted on July 11, 2012 by

In the United States, the federal government and the fifty states split the check for many social assistance programs. Within this partnership, considerable discretion is given to each state in defining eligibility for cash welfare, public health insurance, workforce development, … Continue reading →

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Harshness or stability in attitudes to redistribution?

Posted on July 3, 2012 by

In the previous post from Charlotte Cavaille based on the Attitudes to Wealth and Economic Inequality in the UK event run by Cumberland Lodge, she examined how the “middle” had faired during a time of continuous increase in the income gap between the bottom and … Continue reading →

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Inequality of the will

Posted on April 12, 2012 by

(Apologies for the lack of recent posts while I was ill – we’re back to our normal schedule now!) Among the oldest of old political battles, liberals and conservatives have constantly sparred over the causes of poverty – whether it … Continue reading →

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Bringing Religion Back into the Study of Health Inequality

Posted on March 20, 2012 by

It’s a story that is recounted in every introductory sociology course: in the 1890s Emile Durkheim conducted a groundbreaking study to understand the variations and causes of suicide within industrializing French society. As Durkheim discovered, religious affiliation was a major … Continue reading →

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A few things that inequality causes

Posted on February 14, 2012 by

Of the endless stream of papers that flash in front of my eyes every week, a large number are ‘Spirit Level style’ – that is, they look at the relationship of inequality and a ‘bad thing’ between countries/areas. If I … Continue reading →

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