Inequalities

Month: August 2012

  • Rising inequalities in bereavement and funeral benefits

    Bereavement is one of the most common risks that we all have to face – each year about 220,000 people in Britain lose a partner (see p3 of this report), it is claimed 24,000 children lose a parent, and there are about 550,00 deaths in England, Wales and Scotland in total.  And while ignored by most […]

  • Big Announcement: Inequalities Blog Welcomes Two New Contributor Editors

    Dear Readers, The Inequalities Blog celebrates our second anniversary this month, and we are very pleased with the diverse perspectives and voices that we have brought to the blog over time. In that spirit, we are delighted to introduce Paul Kelleher and Bill Gardner to the Inequalities blog as two new permanent contributors and editors. […]

  • The Cost of a Disabled Sibling

    If you have brothers or sisters, then you already know that an important piece of your childhood experience is out of your control. You cannot control whether your siblings are kind or cruel, generous or stingy, and you certainly cannot control whether your siblings will grow up needing special attention and support. When children have […]

  • Immigration and the politicisation of everyday experience

    Where do hostile attitudes towards immigrants come from? ‘The media and politicians’ often comes the cry from those on the left, seeing the hostility as something brewed by outside forces for their own ends.  ‘People’s own experiences’ is often the response from the right, arguing that people feel worried both culturally and economically from interacting […]

  • Life Expectancy in the U.S. is Getting Shorter for the Least Educated

    The late 20th century brought landmark public health movements to the United States, like the control of tobacco, and medical breakthroughs in the treatment of heart disease and cancer. Life expectancy surged overall, but today the lower educated are still stuck in a different era. From a new paper in Health Affairs (behind a paywall): […]

  • 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! – I thought that over two posts, I’d cover two papers that seemed likely to […]

  • In defence of benefit take-up statistics

    It’s well-known that some people are entitled to benefits but don’t take them up – three-quarters of British people agree that ‘large numbers of people who are eligible for benefits these days fail to claim them’ (BSA2010).  The Government estimates that all these unclaimed benefits and tax credits add up to £11-18bn, which puts the […]

  • Give George W. Bush Some Credit for this Community Health Success

    The United States does not have a National Health Service – certainly nothing that we could display with a choreographed song and dance routine – but the federal government does support an extensive network of safety net health clinics. According to recent figures, 19.5 million individuals receive treatment every year at 1,124 Federally Qualified Health […]