Inequalities

Tag: global inequality

  • Would more people support foreign aid & charities if they grasped the scale of global inequality?

    This is a guest post by the excellent Aveek Bhattacharya, who (like I did!) combines a PhD in Social Policy in LSE with work in the field of alcohol & public health – and is also cross-posted on his personal blog here. For all the attention that economic inequality has received in recent years, it is…

  • Global inequality is declining – maybe

    I don’t have enough time to write a full post on this, but anyone who’s interested in this blog (and my previous post on this) will surely be interested in Branko Milanovic’s new estimates of global inequality, which suggest a decline from 2008 to 2011. However, the data isn’t perfect – when is it? – and Milanovic is…

  • The middle-class in poor countries

    Last week I blogged the first part of an interview with Phillip Brown, and his work with Lauder and Ashton on the ‘global auction’ for middle-class jobs. In this final post, I asked him whether offshoring middle-class jobs is actually a bad thing, and consider the future path of inequality in low-income countries.

  • Offshoring middle-class jobs: myths, realities, policies

    Good jobs in the UK and US are under threat, facing a ‘global auction’ against emerging economies that Western countries are likely to lose – according to a fascinating recent book by Brown, Lauder & Ashton that I previously described in two separate posts. Philip Brown kindly agreed to do an interview for the Inequalities…

  • The sins of our fathers

    In a guest post, Claire Leigh is prompted by an old British prison in Ghana to consider whether we should really have colonial guilt – and in doing this,  draws parallels between the past and present inequalities of the global economy. Inequality and injustice today implicates us all, either through our action or inaction. But what…

  • The impending fall of the Western middle-class (Part II)

    In my post last week I described the controversial new book The Global Auction, where Brown, Lauder and Ashton argue that the Western middle-class are subject to increasing competition from an army of highly-qualified workers in India, China and other countries. Not only can the workers undercut the pay of the Western middle-classes, but companies…

  • The impending fall of the Western middle-class (part I)

    Middle-class people in rich Western countries like to tell a story about globalization, which goes something like this. Globalization means that some menial jobs are off-shored or outsourced, but new jobs are created in their wake – setting us on the path to a fulfilling and high-income ‘knowledge economy’. There are some transitional costs as…

  • After the Smoke Clears: Rebuilding North Africa and the Middle East

    In the last month it’s been impossible to not get swept up in the euphoria of the Jasmine Revolution and the liberation of Egypt and Tunisia. With the situation taking a grim turn in neighboring Libya and in Yemen, however, the struggle for freedom in North Africa and the Middle East is far from over.…

  • Global inequality in 3 charts

    Intellectual pin-ups are a bad idea. I’ve lost track of the number of razor-sharp thinkers whose opinions turn to mush when they’re surrounded by worshipful students and flattering policymakers, keen to brush themselves with their hero’s stardust. So it’s with a heavy heart that I say that Branko Milanovic is becoming a hero of mine……

  • Will human rights have their day in Bangladesh?

    In a guest post, Claire Leigh offers a  personal reflection on the struggle by some the most disadvantaged people in Bangladesh to fight for their human rights. Most posts on Inequalities engage with questions of poverty and social inequality in rich Atlantic welfare states (hence our motto!), but Claire’s post provides us with an opportunity…