Why has the trend in income inequality been relatively flat over the last two decades, even though earnings inequality has continued to increase? Essex University academics have sought to answer this question by 'decomposing' the data on recent trends – allowing them to identify the contribution from different factors such as income sources and household characteristics.
The study concludes that four key factors have mitigated the effect of growing earnings inequality:
Social inequality reduces people’s sense of happiness in Western societies, according to a new study.
Researchers reviewed the available evidence from national surveys of self-reported happiness, and looked at the relationship between happiness and levels of inequality – drawing a distinction between the results for Western and non-Western societies.
Young people use both ‘neo-liberal’ and egalitarian ideas when describing their attitudes to economic inequality, according to a new study.
The Reading University research drew on a series of group interviews with a total of 110 young people aged between 11 and 16 across eight schools in the south east of England.
Welfare services help to reduce inequality and poverty in European countries, according to a new study. But they are not as effective as cash benefits.
Researchers examined the impact of welfare services, such as education and healthcare, on inequality and poverty in 21 EU countries, by reference to a hypothetical situation in which no publicly provided services existed.
People living in more unequal countries show less social solidarity towards others, a new study has suggested.
The study investigated the relationship between income inequality and solidarity (defined as a willingness to contribute to the welfare of other people) in 26 European countries, using data from the 1999 European Values Study.
In Poverty in the United Kingdom (1979) Peter Townsend examined relative deprivation covering a wide range of aspects of living standards, both material and social. He found that there were levels of income below which consumption and participation fell well below what might be seen as normal or acceptable in an increasingly affluent society and argued that this group should be seen to be in poverty. By clicking on the libks below you can download this seminal book. We have provided the full book, 1,216 pages, as one PDF as well as individual chapters and appendices as separate PDFs for download.
Please cite ‘Townsend, P. (1979) Poverty in the United Kingdom, London, Allen Lane and Penguin Books’ if quoting from this book.
Poverty in the United Kingdom: whole book
Inequality undermines social trust, which in turn weakens popular support for income redistribution, according to a new study.
The study looked at the relationship between economic inequality – at both individual and national level – and attitudes towards income inequality in 20 developed capitalist societies.
This bulletin reports on OECD measures of inequality, the rise in income poverty, the final report of the High Pay Commission, fuel poverty, the Family Resources Survey deprivation indicators for Northern Ireland, HM Revenue and Customs child poverty measure, and the Child Poverty Act.
Parental wealth is positively associated with a wide range of outcomes for children in early adulthood, according to a paper from the London School of Economics.
The study claims to provide the first UK estimates for the associations between parental wealth during adolescence and various children’s outcomes in early adulthood (at age 25), based on data from the British Household Panel Survey.
Basic deprivation is the key dimension associated with economic stress, according to a study funded by the European Commission.
Researchers examined the relationship between material deprivation and economic stress in European countries, using data from the 2009 European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC). Stress was measured by reference to how difficult households felt it was to make ends meet.