Inequalities

Month: July 2013

  • Back of the envelope policy-making

    Back of the envelope policy-making

    This post was originally going to be about the pros and cons of two recent UK government policy announcements. The first proposes to force people to wait a week after losing their jobs before claiming JSA (Jobseeker’s Allowance), and the second to get new immigrants to pay a £1000 levy on entering the country, in […]

  • Could ‘pre-distribution’ boost the wage share?

    In a guest post, Stewart Lansley captures the key findings from his latest TUC pamphlet (with Howard Reed) on how to reverse the increasing share of national income going to profits rather than pay packets. There has been much discussion in the UK of the merits of tackling inequality by prioritizing ‘pre-distribution` – of attempting […]

  • U.S. Health Disadvantage is Not Inevitable

    Two major research studies in the last year compare health indicators in the United States with other major upper-income countries. Both exhaustively review government statistics and published articles. The first study, from the Institute of Medicine, draws on a panel of luminary demographers and epidemiologists to explore the causes of U.S. health disadvantage (editors Laudan […]

  • Killer evidence for intergenerational welfare dependency?

    A joint post by Lindsey Macmillan and Ben Baumberg looks at an important – but easily misinterpreted – new paper on ‘Family Welfare Cultures’. With the topic of intergenerational worklessness high on the political agenda, a clever recent Norwegian paper on the role of family welfare cultures in intergenerational welfare dependency has been attracting some […]

  • Benefits: Fact and Fiction

    Benefits: Fact and Fiction

    As part of the International Year of Statistics (by the way, it’s also the International Year of Water Cooperation, and the International Year of Quinoa, so good quinoa recipes in the comments please), Ipsos Mori recently conducted a survey looking at people’s factual beliefs about the UK. I’m sure you’ll all be shocked to hear […]

  • Brazilian protests: inequality and its consequences

    In this guest post, Kênia Parsons of LSE/University of New South Wales explores the continuing, inequality-fuelled protests in her home country of Brazil. A wave of protests has invaded the Brazilian streets. An increase in bus fares was the spark needed to ignite the street protests.  Brazilians are protesting about public transport, health services, education, the […]

  • The Asian American Paradox: “Model Minorities” and Outsiders

    Asian Americans are among the fastest growing demographics in the United States, yet they receive little attention in the study of racial inequality. This is especially surprising because Asian Americans occupy a paradoxical position in American society — simultaneously successful and marginal. On average, Asian American educational attainment, income, and wealth is equal to, or […]

  • Educational Inequalities in Parents’ Time with Children

    In a guest post, Pablo Gracia looks at inequalities in how parents spend time with their children, using his own research on the UK and Spain – and then considers the likely causes, consequences, and what this might all mean for policy. When people think of inequality, words like money or income often come to their […]

  • Inequality and civic morality

    Inequality and civic morality

    The moral bankruptcy of the modern rich is a popular topic these days; whether they are private individuals avoiding tax (see Jimmy Carr, Lord Ashcroft, and the new kings of full-on tax evasion, Dolce & Gabanna), or the heads of corporations overseeing damaging policies (and, of course, avoiding tax). This is often framed in terms […]