The III connects research about inequality from across the LSE. Here you can find published research exploring inequality from leading academics across the school.
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Democratizing Inequalities: Dilemmas of the New Public Participation (2015)
Authors: Caroline W. Lee, Michael McQuarrie, and Edward T. Walker; Foreword by Craig Calhoun
Keywords: democracy, participation, inequality, political action
Summary: This book attempts to outline how modern societies face a variety of structural problems that limit the potentials for true democratization, as well as vast inequalities in political action and voice that are not easily resolved by participatory solutions.
Community mobilisation in the 21st century: Updating our theory of social change? (2014)
Author: Catherine Campbell
Keywords: activism, collective action, community mobilisation, social change, social movements, the new left, Paulo Freire
Summary: This paper explores the Freirian theory of social change underpinning health-related community mobilisation in poor and marginalised communities. Highlighting potential shortcomings of its essentialist understandings of power and identity, and linear notions of change, it examines how lessons from the 'new left', and burgeoning global protest movements can rejuvenate the field given the growing complexity of 21st-century social inequalities.
Underground sociabilities: identity, culture and resistance in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (2013)
Authors: Sandra Jovchelovitch and Jacqueline Priego-Hernandez
Summary: This book is about patterns of sociability and social development in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It examines how favela communites, despite harsh conditions of living, poverty and segregation, have been able to mobilise local resources to resist exclusion, fight off marginalisation and rewrite relations between the favelas and the city. The book is useful to academics in the social sciences and humanities, policymakers, activists and all those who are interested in human-centred social and community development, urban planning, and communication across asymmetries in the contemporary city.
Bottom-up social development in favelas of Rio de Janeiro: a toolkit (2015)
Authors: Sandra Jovchelovitch and Jacqueline Priego-Hernandez
Summary: This toolkit provides information, resources and tools based on the lessons and research findings of Underground Sociabilities, and international and interinstitutional partnership that studied the identity, culture and resilience of favela communities in Rio de Janeiro.
Inequality: What Can Be Done? (2015)
Author: Anthony B. Atkinson
Keywords: inequality, public policy, poverty, income distribution, developed countries
Summary: This book presents a comprehensive set of policies that could bring about a genuine shift in the distribution of income in developed countries. The book argues that problem is not simply that the rich are getting richer, but that society is failing to tackle poverty, and the economy is rapidly changing to leave the majority of people behind. To reduce inequality, the book argues that society has to go beyond placing new taxes on the wealthy to fund existing programs. The book thus recommends ambitious new policies in five areas: technology, employment, social security, the sharing of capital, and taxation.
Lectures on Public Economics Updated Edition (2015)
Authors: Anthony B. Atkinson and Joseph E. Stiglitz
Keywords: public economics, taxation, behavioral response, tax systems, public sector, public goods
Summary: First published in 1980, the lectures presented in this updated book examine the behavioral response of households and firms to tax changes. Topics include the effects of taxation on labor supply, savings, risk-taking, the firm, debt, and economic growth. The book then delves into normative questions such as the design of tax systems, optimal taxation, public sector pricing, and public goods, including local public goods.
Public Economics in an Age of Austerity (2014)
Author: Anthony B. Atkinson
Keywords: public economics, austerity, ageing population, education, income tax, capital, social security contributions
Summary: This book describes how public economics can help society to think about alternative ways of meeting the challenges of an ageing population, increased investment in education, and climate change. It casts doubt on conventionally held views, such as those concerned with top tax rates, the undesirability of taxing capital income, the targeting of child benefits, and the merging of income tax and social security contributions.
Inequality and Crises Revisited (2015)
Authors: Salvatore Morelli and Anthony B. Atkinson
Keywords: inequality, crisis, Chartbook of Economic Inequality, level hypothesis, growth hypothesis
Summary: Using the updated version of the Chartbook of Economic Inequality, this paper provides new empirical evidence on the `level' hypothesis and reassesses the empirical validity of the `growth' hypothesis. In line with previous work, the empirical analysis on the entire set of countries and years under investigation does not provide any conclusive and compelling statistical support to either of the hypotheses.
The median as watershed (2013)
Authors: Rolf Aaberge and Anthony B. Atkinson
Keywords: income distribution, median income, Stiglitz Commission, median, poverty, measurement
Summary: The aim of this paper is to bring out some of the implications of adopting the median as a diving line for measurement purposes, particularly with the robustness of the conclusions reached by the Stiglitz Commission and the Europe 2020 Agenda for the European Union. In doing so, the paper develops the two alternative approaches—primal and dual—applied to Lorenz curves in Aaberge (2001).
Chartbook of Economic Inequality (2014)
Authors: Anthony B. Atkinson and Salvatore Morelli
Keywords: long-run changes, economic inequality, charts, distribution
Summary: The purpose of this chartbook is to present a summary of evidence about long-run changes in economic inequality for 25 countries, accounting for more than one-third of the world’s population, covering more than one hundred years. The results are presented in 25 charts, one for each country, together with a description of the sources.
Can schools support HIV/AIDS-affected children? Exploring the 'ethic of care' amongst rural Zimbabwean teachers (2016)
Authors: Catherine Campbell, Louise Andersen, Alice Mutsikiwa, Claudius Madanhire, Constance Nyamukapa, and Simon Gregson
Keywords: HIV/AIDS, Zimbabwe, international education, education policy, public health, ethic of care
Summary: This paper explores the ethic of care in Zimbabwean schools to highlight the poor fit between the western caring schools literature and daily realities of schools in different material and cultural contexts. Interviews and focus groups were conducted with 44 teachers and 55 community members and analysed in light of a companion study of HIV/AIDS-affected pupils' own accounts of their care-related experiences.
How policies that promote school competition and choice are linked to school segregation (2015)
Author: Jeremy E. Fiel
Keywords: American public schools, charter schools, private schools, resources, distribution, United States
Summary: This post for the LSE US Centre argues that much of the re-segreation trends in American public schools is related to new policies which give families the opportunity to take advantage of schools they see as being 'better'. Using school system data from 1993 to 2010, the author finds that school segregation in cities was highest when school resources were distributed unequally across schools and districts and when families had more choice to send their children to private or charter schools.
Educação para todos - "free to those who can afford it": Human capital and inequality persistence in 21st C Brazil (2013)
Author: Neil Kendrick
Keywords: education, Brazil, higher education, human capital, inequality
Summary: This paper utilizes socio-economic profiles of university students that indicates that between 1987-2010, the Brazilian education system could have exacerbated inequality, despite society having undertaken national educational expansion.
Understanding the improved performance of disadvantaged pupils in London (2015)
Authors: Jo Blanden, Ellen Greaves, Paul Gregg, Lindsey Macmillan, and Luke Sibieta
Keywords: education, inequality, london, schools, performance
Summary: This paper uses a combination of administrative and survey data to document the improvements of educational results for disadvantaged students in London and to understand why the performance has improved so much.
Entry to elite positions and the stratification of higher education in Britain (2015)
Authors: Paul Wakeling and Mike Savage
Keywords: class, elite, education, higher education, institutional stratification, social class, inequality
Summary: This paper uses the Great British Class Survey (GBCS) to examine association between social background, university attended and social position for over 85,000 graduates. This unique dataset allows the researchers to look beyond the clear labour market experiences of graduates investigated in previous studies and to examine the outcome of attending particular institutions.
Making a Difference in Education: What the evidence says
Authors: Robert Cassen, Sandra McNally and Anna Vignoles
Keywords: education, education and state, Great Britain, educational change
Summary: This book surveys the evidence of what is and is not effective in English schools, concentrating on outcomes for disadvantaged pupils, with additional evidence from other countries where relevant. It covers a large range of topics, including Early Years, Literacy and Numeracy, Teacher Quality, Special Education Needs, ICT, Vocational Education, and School Organisation and Resources.
Creating social policy to support women's agency in coercive settings: a case study from Uganda (2016)
Authors: Rochelle Burgess and Catherine Campbell
Keywords: social policy, Uganda, gender, agency
Summary: The Ugandan Marriage and Divorce Bill seeks to strengthen women's agency in marriage, but has faced many obstacles, including objections from many women themselves in public consultations. This paper explores key stakeholders' accounts of the difficulties facing the Bill's progress to date, through focus groups with 24 rural and urban men and women, interviews with 14 gender champions in government, non-governmental organisations and legal sectors, and 25 relevant media and radio reports.
Is economic policy sexist? (World Economic Forum blog post)(2015)
Author: Diane Perrons
Keywords: gender inequality, United Kingdom, public policy
Summary: Despite nearly 50 years of policy effort, the UK is still a long way from eradicating gender inequality. There has been progress on many fronts, but women are still far from prominent in political life; they are trivialized in the media; under-represented, underpaid and over-exploited in the labour market; and at risk of violence in the home.
Gendering the inequality debate (2015)
Author: Diane Perrons
Keywords: gender inequality, social norms, austerity, socially sustainable development
Summary: This article explores the gender dimensions of growing economic inequality, summarises key arguments from feminist economics which expose the inadequacy of current mainstream economic analysis on which ‘development’ is based, and argues for a ‘gender and equality’ approach to economic and social policy in both the global North and South.
Gendering inequality: a note on Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2014)
Author: Diane Perrons
Keywords: gender, social norms, inequality, wages, Piketty, feminist economics
Summary: This paper attempts to enrich Piketty’s analysis in two main ways: first, by paying greater attention to the processes and social norms through which inequalities are produced and justified and second, by highlighting the ways in which inequality is experienced differently depending not only on class, but also on other aspects of identity including gender.
Gender Equality, Economic Growth, and Women’s Agency (2015)
Author: Naila Kabeer
Keywords: agency, empowerment, development, growth, inequality, gender
Summary: Macroeconometric studies generally find fairly robust evidence that gender equality has a positive impact on economic growth, but reverse findings relating to the impact of economic growth on gender equality are far less consistent. The high level of aggregation at which these studies are carried out makes it difficult to ascertain the causal pathways that might explain this asymmetry in impacts. Using a feminist institutional framework, this contribution explores studies carried out at lower levels of analysis for insights into the pathways likely to be driving these two sets of relationships and a possible explanation for their asymmetry.
Violence against Women as ‘Relational’ Vulnerability: Endangering the Sustainable Human Development Agenda (2014)
Author: Naila Kabeer
Keywords: violence against women, human development, relational vulnerability
Summary: Violence against women can be conceptualized as a ‘relational vulnerability’, reflecting women’s subordinate status within hierarchical gender relations and the dependencies associated with it. While such violence can take many different forms, this paper focuses on the interpersonal violence of ‘normal’ times, most often within the home at the hands of intimate partners. The paper provides estimates of incidence, which suggest that it varies considerably across countries and by social group.
Organising women workers in the informal economy (2013)
Authors: Naila Kabeer, Kirsty Milward and Ratna Sudarshan
Keywords: women workers, informal economy, organisation, rights, collective action, strategies
Summary: This article focuses on the challenges facing organisation among the hardest-to-reach working women in the informal economy. What gives some of them the impetus and courage to organise? What is distinctive about the strategies they draw on to transcend their structurally disadvantaged position within the economy? What barriers do they continue to face in their efforts to address the injustices of the economic system? This article discusses these issues specifically in relation to the experience of two organisations: MAP Foundation, Thailand, and KKPKP, Pune, India.
How we define competition fuels gender inequality in business (2015)
Author: Jane Dennehy
Keywords: gender, inequality, business, masculine, feminine, competition
Summary: This post on the LSE Business Review argues that competitive behaviour, limited to winning and losing stereotypes, is hypermasculine and fuels gender inequality in the business world.
Confronting Gender Inequality: Findings from the LSE Commission on Gender, Inequality and Power (2015)
Author: LSE Commission on Gender, Inequality and Power, LSE Gender Institute
Keywords: Gender, macroeconomics, quotas, gender awareness, social norms, politics, political parties, law, merit, women, media
Confronting Gender Inequality: how far have we come in the UK? (2015)
Author: Professor Anne Phillips, LSE Department of Government
Keywords: gender, women, United Kingdom, economics, law, government, media, power, gender-based violence
Summary: Professor Anne Phillips reflects on the findings of the LSE Commission on Gender, Inequality and Power and begs the question of how far the United Kingdom has come in confronting gender inequality since the twentieth century.
The Curious Question of Feminising Poverty in Costa Rica: The Importance of Gendered Subjectives (2008)
Author: Sylvia Chant, Professor of Development Geography, LSE Gender Institute
Keywords: Costa Rica, feminism, poverty, gender, household, Global South
Children In Female-Headed Households: Interrogating the Concept of an 'Inter-Generational Transmission of Disadvantage' with Particular Reference to the Gambia, Philippines, and Costa Rica (2007)
Author: Sylvia Chant, Professor of Development Geography, LSE Gender Institute
Keywords: Costa Rica, Philippines, Gambia, gender, household, poverty, women, children, inter-generational, well-being
Re-visiting the 'Feminisation of Poverty' and the UNDP Gender Indices: What Case for a Gendered Poverty Index? (2006)
Author: Sylvia Chant, Professor of Development Geography, LSE Gender Institute
Keywords: gender, women, poverty, feminism, income, UNDP, capabilities, income, index
The New Economy and Earnings Inequalities: Explaining Social, Spatial and Gender Divisions in the UK and London (2005)
Author: Diane Perrons, Professor of Economic Geography and Gender Studies, LSE Gender Institute
Keywords: gender, earnings, income, poverty, United Kingdom, London, economy, women
Can We Afford (Not) to Care: Prospects and Policy (2005)
Author: Susan Himmelweit, PhD
Keywords: caring, distribution, social norms, unpaid economies, paid economies, opportunity costs, uncaring
Paid Work, Women's Empowerment and Inclusive Growth (2013)
Author: Naila Kabeer, Ragui Assaad, Akosua Darkwah, Simeen Mahmud, Hania Sholkamy, Sakiba Tasneem, Dzodzi Tsikata, and Munshi Sulaiman
Keywords: gender, growth, education, employment, labour, productivity, health, children, well-being, family, women
Gender Equality and Economic Growth: Is There a Win-Win? (2013)
Author: Naial Kabeer and Luisa Natali
Keywords: gender, economic growth, women, education, employment, health, well-being, development, cross-country regression analysis
Women's economic empowerment and inclusive growth: labour markets and enterprise development (2012)
Author: Naila Kabeer
Keywords: women, gender, empowerment, growth, inclusive growth, labour markets, enterprise, development
Leaving the Rice Fields, But Not the Countryside: Gender, Livelihood Diversification and Pro-Poor Growth in Rural Vietnam (2000)
Author: Naila Kabeer and Tran Thi Van Anh
Keywords: Vietnam, Asia, gender, women, livelihood, poverty, growth, rural, prosperity, diversification, household
Women, Girls and World Poverty: Empowerment, Equity or Essentialism? (2016)
Author: Sylvia Chant
Keywords: gender equality, female empowerment, world poverty, economics, rights
Summary: This paper asks if mounting reliance on women and girls to solve world poverty is an effective means to achieve greater female empowerment and gender equality, or whether, instead, it threatens to lockdown essentialising stereotypes which are unlikely to dismantle gender disparities within and beyond the home. The discussion highlights some key problems and paradoxes in three popular interventions nominally oriented to helping women lift themselves and their households out of poverty: conditional cash transfer programmes, microfinance schemes, and 'investing in girls', as promoted, inter alia, among other things, by the Nike Foundation's 'Girl Effect'.
Exploring the "feminisation of poverty" in relation to women's work and home-based enterprise in slums of the Global South (2014)
Author: Sylvia Chant
Keywords: family business, gender theory, women, informal economy, work, Costa Rica, "Feminisation of poverty", home-based enterprise, slum, The Gambia, Philippines
Summary: The paper argues that the "feminisation of poverty" compounds the tensions women already face in terms of managing unpaid reproductive and/or "volunteer" work with their economic contributions to household livelihoods, and it is in the context of urban slums, where housing, service and infrastructure deficiencies pose considerable challenges to women's dual burdens of productive and reproductive labour. The paper emphasizes that to more effectively address gender inequality while also alleviating poverty, policy interventions sensitive to women's multiple, time-consuming responsibilities and obligations are paramount.
Cities through a 'gender lens': a golden 'urban age' for women in the global South? (2013)
Author: Sylvia Chant
Keywords: cities, gender, inequality, poverty, property, slums, space
Summary: This paper reviews what we have learnt from the literature on gender and urban development. It discusses disparities in access to education and vocational training and to land and housing ownership through a "gender lens". It considers service deficiencies and associated time burdens, which limit income generation among women. Violence and gender, and gender divisions in access to different spaces within the city and in engagement in urban politics, are also covered. These factors cast doubt on whether women's contributions to the prosperity often associated with urbanization are matched by commensurate returns and benefits.
Gender inequality in mobility and mode choice in Pakistan (2016)
Authors: Muhammad Adeel, Anthony G. O. Yeh and Feng Zhang
Keywords: travel behaviour, gender, Pakistan, social context
Summary: Using the nationally representative dataset of the 2007 Pakistan Time-Use Survey, this paper examines gender differences in daily trip rate, mode choice, travel duration, and purpose of travel, which are previously unreported because of limited data availability. Wide gender mobility gaps are observed in the country, where women are less likely to travel, are half as mobile as men and may rely heavily on walking. The particular social and cultural context of the country, that renders women as private, secluded and family honor, seems influential in shaping their mobility and choice of activities. Demographic factors such as age, household income, and marital status significantly decrease female mobility levels. Hence, these findings call for a gender-based culturally responsive transportation policy in the country.
Top incomes and the gender divide (2016)
Authors: Anthony Atkinson, Alessandra Casarico and Sarah Voitchovsky
Keywords: top income groups, gender, income composition
Summary: In the recent research on top incomes, there has been little discussion of gender. How many of the top 1 and 10 per cent are women? A great deal is known about gender differentials in earnings, but how far does this carry over to the distribution of total incomes, bringing self-employment and capital income into the picture? This paper investigates the gender divide at the top of the income distribution using tax record data for a sample of eight countries with individual taxation. It shows that women are under-represented at the top of the distribution.
Inequalities of Income and Inequalities of Longevity: A Cross-Country Study (2016)
Authors: Eric Neumayer and Thomas Plümper
Keywords: Income inequality, longevity, life expectancy, redistribution, cross-country
Summary: This paper sets out to demonstrate that increases in income inequality within a country result in more inequality in the number of years people live. Conversely, this paper demonstrates that increases in income redistribution result in greater equality in longevity.
Inequality, the Urban-Rural Gap, and Migration (2013)
Author: Alwyn Young
Keywords: urban, rural, migration, income, gap
Summary: This paper argues that the flows and relative incomes of urban and rural workers are suggestive of a world where the population sorts itself geographically on the basis of its human capital. It also displays a simple model that explains the urban-rural gap in living standards.
Government quality and spatial inequality: A cross-country analysis (2013)
Authors: Roberto Ezcurra and Andres Rodriguez-Pose
Keywords: governance, government quality, spatial inequality, regional disparities
Summary: This paper examines the relationship between government quality and spatial inequality across 46 countries over the period 1996-2006. The results of the analysis point to the existence of a negative and significant association between government quality and the magnitude of regional disparities.
Cities and social equity: inequality, territory and urban form (2009)
Authors: Philipp Rode, Ricky Burdett, Richard Brown, Frederico Ramos, Kay Kitazawa, Antoine Paccoud, and Natznet Tesfay
Keywords: South America, urban, resource allocation, polarisation, geography, equity
Summary: This project assesses the impact of inequality in an urban context with comparative research and data collection in five cities (São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Bogotá, and Lima), with wider resonance for cities throughout the world.
Cities and Social Equity: Inequality, territory and urban form (2009)
Author: Urban Age Programme, The London School of Economics and Political Science
Keywords: cities, social equity, inequality, Brazil, South America
Summary: This report is part of the Urban Age Programme at the London School of Economics and Political Science and is a joint initiative of LSE and Deutsche Bank's Alfred Herrhausen Society investigating the future of cities. The research for this report was prepared from November 2007 to February 2009 and represents the annual Urban Age research focus 2008, part of the Urban Age South America investigation.
Comparing the health and wealth performance of metropolitan regions (2012)
Author: Antoine Paccoud
Keywords: comparative, metropolitan regions, inequality, health, wealth
Summary: This paper presents a methodology to construct comparable estimates of health and wealth performance for 126 metropolitan regions globally that puts spatial comparability on an equal footing with data comparability. It will be used to investigate the relationship between health and wealth performance at the metropolitan level.
Economic transition and speculative urbanisation in China: Gentrification versus dispossession (2016)
Author: Hyun Bang Shin
Keywords: China, dispossession, economic transition, gentrification, speculative urbanisation
Summary: This paper argues that while China’s urban accumulation may have produced new-build gentrification, redevelopment projects have been targeting dilapidated urban spaces that are yet to be fully converted into commodities. This means that dispossession is a precursor to gentrification.
Intergenerational Housing Support Between Retired Old Parents and their Children in Urban China (2013)
Authors: Bingqin Li and Hyun Bang Shin
Keywords: intergenerational support, housing, China, urban
Summary: This paper investigates the changing pattern of intergenerational housing support between retired old parents and their children, and the legacy of public housing in shaping this pattern.
Whose games? The cost of being “Olympic citizens” in Beijing (2013)
Authors: Hyun Bang Shin and Bingqin Li
Keywords: Olympic Games, Beijing, China, citizens
Summary: The research in this paper, which focused on the Beijing Summer Olympic Games of 2008, unpacks the heterogeneous groups in a particular sector of the housing market to gain a better understanding of how the Games affected different resident groups.
Unequal cities of spectacle and mega-events in China (2012)
Author: Hyun Bang Shin
Keywords: mega-events, spectacles, capital accumulation, nationalism, China
Summary: This paper revisits China’s recent experiences of hosting three international mega-events: the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, the 2010 Shanghai World Expo and the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games. While maintaining a critical political economic perspective, this paper builds upon the literature of viewing mega-events as societal spectacles and puts forward the proposition that these mega-events in China are promoted to facilitate capital accumulation and ensure socio-political stability for the nation’s further accumulation.
Use of science to guide city planning policy and practice: how to achieve healthy and sustainable future cities (2016)
Authors: James F Sallis, Fiona Bull, Ricky Burdett, Lawrence D Frank, Peter Griffiths, Billie Giles-Corti and Mark Stevenson
Keywords: health, urban design, transport, planning, public policy
Summary: Land-use and transport policies contribute to worldwide epidemics of injuries and non-communicable diseases through traffic exposure, noise, air pollution, social isolation, low physical activity, and sedentary behaviours. Enhanced research translation to increase the influence of health research on urban and transport planning decisions could address many global health problems. This paper illustrates the potential for such change by presenting conceptual models and case studies of research translation applied to urban and transport planning and urban design.
Is There Trickle-Down from Tech? Poverty, Employment, and the High-Technology Multiplier in U.S. Cities (2015)
Authors: Neil Lee and Andrés Rodríguez-Pose
Keywords: employment, high-technology industries, metropolitan areas, poverty, wages
Summary: Little research, however, has assessed how high-tech affects urban poverty and the wages of workers with little formal education. This article addresses this gap in the literature and investigates the relationships among employment in high-tech industries, poverty, and the labor market for non-degree-educated workers using a panel of 295 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) in the United States between 2005 and 2011. The results show no real impact of the presence of high-technology industries on poverty and, especially, extreme poverty. Yet there is strong evidence that tech employment increases wages for non-degree-educated workers and, to a lesser extent, employment for those without degrees. These findings suggest that although tech employment has some role in improving welfare for non-degree-educated workers, tech employment alone is not enough to reduce poverty.
Organized Combat or Triumph of Ideas?: The Politics of Inequality and Winner-Take-All Economy in the UK (2015)
Authors: Jonathan Hopkin and Kate Alexander Shaw
Keywords: United Kingdom, inequality, politics, winner-take-all, political economy
Summary: This article draws on the winner-take-all account of American politics (Hacker and Pierson) to examine the politics of rising inequality and top income growth in the UK, which has seen dramatic growth in income inequality. This article asserts that neither economic forces such as globalization and skill-biased technological change, nor domestic political factors such as median voter preferences, can plausibly explain why the UK has seen a greater increase in inequality than other European countries.
The Politics Of Piketty: What Political Science Can Learn From, and Contribute to, the Debate on Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2014)
Author: Jonathan Hopkin
Keywords: Piketty, capital, politics, political science, inequality
Summary: This paper argues that Piketty's (2014) criticism of the economics discipline for 'foolish disciplinary squabbles' could easily have been directed at political scientists, for no recent contribution by political scientists has made such a major impact on the understanding of the nature of contemporary capitalism and the inequalities that characterize it.
Equality and Efficiency in Advanced Democracies: Revisiting the Leaky Bucket Hypothesis (2012)
Authors: Mark Blyth, Jonathan Hopkin, and Seth Werfel
Keywords: income inequality, market efficiency, OECD, regulation
Summary: This paper revisits the hypothesis that society must trade-off income equality for market efficiency. Previous cross-sectional analysis suggests that equality and efficiency may be positively correlated at higher levels of regulation. This paper confirms this curvilinear relationship for a panel of OECD countries from 1980 to 2010.
Information, inequality, and mass polarization: ideology in advanced democracies (2015)
Authors: Torben Iversen and David Soskice
Keywords: polarization, American Congress, income inequality, electorate, United States, comparative political economy
Summary: Growing polarization in the American Congress is closely related to rising income inequality. Yet there has been no corresponding polarization of the U.S. electorate, and across advanced democracies, mass polarization is negatively related to income inequality. To explain this puzzle, this paper proposes a comparative political economy model of mass polarization in which the same institutional facts that generate income inequality also undermine political information.
Democratic limits to redistribution: inclusionary versus exclusionary coalitions in the knowledge economy (2015)
Authors: Torben Iversen and David Soskice
Keywords: economic shocks, government response, political economy, electoral systems, coalitions, knowledge economy
Summary: This article argues that the divergent government responses to economic shocks reflect differences in underlying electoral coalitions, and that these in turn mirror the structure of party and electoral systems, using evidence for government responses to economic shocks in the period 1980 to 2010.
Social identity and redistributive preferences: a survey (2015)
Authors: Joan Costa-i-Font and Frank Cowell
Keywords: social identity, preferences for redistribution, inequality, diversity, redistributive institutions
Summary: Social identity is important in explaining attitudes towards redistribution and pro-social behaviour. This paper examines how economic theory measures social identity and its effects on preferences towards redistribution, social solidarity and redistributive institutions. Empirical evidence indicates that social identity carries weight in explaining the presence of social preferences and attitudes towards redistributive institutions.
A better life for all? Democratization and electrification in post-apartheid South Africa (2016)
Authors: Verena Kroth, Valentino Larcinesse and Joachim Wehner
Keywords: democracy, distributive politics, electricity, South Africa
Summary: Does democracy affect basic service delivery? If yes, who benefits, and which elements of democracy matter - enfranchisement, the liberalization of political organization, or both? In 1994, 19 million South Africans gained the right to vote. The previously banned African National Congress was elected promising “a better life for all”. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we exploit heterogeneity in the share of newly enfranchised voters across municipalities to evaluate how franchise extension affected household electrification. We find that the effect of democratization on basic services depends on the national government’s ability to influence distribution at the local level.
Becoming more connected to the financial human capital network may hold the key to improving wage inequality within the US finance industry (2015)
Author: Kuo Siong 'Gordon' Tan
Keywords: United States, financial industry, human capital, wage inequality
Summary: In new research that tracks the movement of over 20,000 skilled financial workers across 264 US cities between 2007 and 2011, the author constructs a financial human capital network. The post finds that the network contains 40 financial hubs, which are linked to higher wages and wage inequality may be more pronounced between cities that are highly networked and those that are not.
Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2014)
Author: Thomas Piketty, Centennial Professor, LSE
Keywords: wealth, income, inequality, Piketty, capital, accumulation, distribution
Summary: This book analyzes a unique collection of economic data from twenty countries, ranging as far back as the eighteenth century, to uncover key economic and social patterns of inequality and the concentration of wealth and income.
Capital in the twenty-first century: a critique (2014)
Author: David Soskice
Keywords: Piketty, capital, r>g, wealth, income, inequality
Summary: This paper sets out and explains Piketty's model of the dynamics of capitalism based on two equations and the r>g inequality and then takes issue with his analysis of the rebuilding of inequality from the 1970s to the present on three separate grounds.
Selection into Trade and Wage Inequality (2014)
Author: Thomas Sampson
Keywords: trade, industry, wage distribution
Summary: This paper analyzes how intra-industry trade affects the wage distribution when both workers and firms are heterogenous. Consequently, trade increases skill demand and wage inequality in all countries.
The changing distribution of individual incomes in the UK before and after the recession (2015)
Author: Eleni Karagiannaki and Lucinda Platt
Keywords: income, Great Recession, income distribution, United Kingdom
Summary: Using pooled data from the Family Resources Survey, this paper addresses the question of which groups gained and which lost in terms of their individual income between 2005-2008 and 2009-20012.
Inequality: Are we really 'all in this together'? (2015)
Author: Gabriel Zucman
Keywords: United Kingdom, benefits, government policy, wealth
Summary: This paper examines how the United Kingdom stands in terms of the levels and changes in inequality of pre-tax and benefit income, net incomes and wealth. It also explores the role of the coalition government's policies in influencing these outcomes.
Firming Up Inequality (2015)
Author: Jae Song, David J. Price, Faith Guvenen, and Nicholas Bloom
Keywords: productivity, firms, incomes, wages, inequality
Summary: This paper discusses how much of the rise in earnings inequality can be attributed to rising dispersion between firms in the average wages they pay, and how much is due to rising wage dispersions among workers within the firm.
Monitoring the evolution of income poverty and real incomes over time (2015)
Authors: A.B. Atkinson, Anne-Catherine Guio, and Eric Marlier
Keywords: poverty, national accounts, social indicators, inequality
Summary: This paper brings together two approaches to the monitoring of household living standards: the macro-economic analysis of aggregates and the social indicators based on household microdata. It then makes a number of recommendations about possible improvements in the underlying data and in the construction of the social indicators.
The income distribution in the UK: A picture of advantage and disadvantage (2015)
Author: Stephen P. Jenkins
Keywords: poverty, affluence, income distribution, united kingdom, inequality
Summary: This paper describes the UK income distribution and how it has evolved over the most recent 50 year period, with comparisons to other wealthy countries.
Piketty in the long run (2015)
Author: Frank A. Cowell
Keywords: long run, income distribution, wealth distribution, inequality, Piketty, inheritance, equilibrium
Summary: This paper examines the idea of 'the long run' in Piketty (2014), which draws on a rich economic analysis that models the intra- and inter- generational processes that underlie the development of wealth distribution.
Disabled People's Financial Histories: Uncovering the disability wealth-penalty (2014)
Author: Abigail McKnight
Keywords: wealth, disability, inequality, lifecycle
Summary: This paper uses data from two large scale social surveys to examine the relationship between disability status and household wealth holdings. It finds that overall disabled people have substantially lower household wealth and all components of wealth than non-disabled people.
Handbook of Income Distribution SET vols. 2A-2B (2015)
Authors: Anthony B. Atkinson and Francois Bourguignon
Keywords: income distribution, historical inequality, globalization, macro-economics, policy
Summary: This book assembles the expertise of leading authorities on subjects such as education, health, experimental economics, historical income inequality, and globalization. Some chapters discuss future growth areas, such as inheritance, the links between inequality and macro-economics and finance, and the distributional implications of climate change.
After Piketty? (2014)
Author: Anthony B. Atkinson
Keywords: inequality, poverty, wealth, employment, technical change, taxation
Summary: In this paper, the author takes Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty as the starting point for a set of twelve policy proposals that could bring about the genuine shift in the distribution of income towards less inequality. In designing the proposals, the author draws on the experience of reducing inequality in postwar Europe and on an analysis as to how the economic circumstances are now different in the twenty-first century, highlighting the role of technical change and the rise in capital emphasized by Piketty.
Can we reduce income inequality in OECD countries? (2015)
Author: Anthony B. Atkinson
Keywords: inequality, wages, redistribution, OECD
Summary: The aim of this paper is to inject a more optimistic note into the public debate about inequality which has generated a sense of doom, gloom, and inevitability. The paper argues that there have been periods in the past when income inequality was reduced and society can learn from these. The paper ends by outlining for “old” measures to reduce inequality, based on lessons from post-war decades in Europe, and four “new” measures suggested by the analysis of today’s economics of inequality.
Top incomes in colonial Seychelles (2015)
Author: Anthony B. Atkinson
Keywords: Seychelles, income distribution, inequality, Gini, colonialism, Great Britain
Summary: In 2013, the Seychelles were recorded as having the highest Gini coefficient for income inequality of any country in the world, having been independent for thirty seven years. This paper delves back into its colonial past to see how unequal was the distribution of income under British governance.
Income distribution and taxation in Mauritius: A seventy-five year history of top incomes (2015)
Author: Anthony B. Atkinson
Keywords: Mauritius, income distribution, taxation,
Summary: The purpose of this paper is to provide new evidence of the historical distribution of income in Mauritius, one that has been somewhat neglected due to historical information being very limited.
Top Incomes in South Africa over a century (2013)
Authors: Facundo Alvaredo and Anthony B. Atkinson
Keywords: South Africa, income inequality, poverty, long-run trends, race
Summary: This paper, the authors provide evidence that is partial—being confined to to top incomes—but which for the first time shows how the income distribution changed on a (near) annual basis from 1913 onwards in South Africa. The paper presents estimates of the shares in total income of groups such as the top 1 percent and the top 0.1 percent, covering the period from colonial times to the 21st century.
The colonial legacy: Income inequality in former British African colonies (2014)
Author: Anthony B. Atkinson
Keywords: Great Britain, Africa, African colonies, colonialism, income distribution
Summary: This paper is concerned with the distribution of incomes in former British colonies in Africa. While narrow in focus, it illuminates a broader set of issues of both historical and contemporary interest.
Explained and unexplained wage gaps across the main ethno-religious groups in Great Britain (2012)
Authors: Simonetta Longhi, Cheti Nicoletti and Lucinda Platt
Keywords: wage gaps, ethno-religious groups, Great Britain, generational
Summary: This paper analyses the difference in average wages of selected ethno-religious groups in Great Britain at the mean and over the wage distribution with the aim of explaining why such wage gaps differ across minority groups. The paper finds that within all minority ethno-religious groups the second generation achieves higher wages than the first generation, but the amount that is explained by characteristics does not necessarily increase with generation.
Interpreting wage gaps of disabled men: the roles of productivity and discrimination (2010)
Authors: Simonetta Longhi, Cheti Nicoletti and Lucinda Platt
Keywords: disability, wage gaps, earnings, discrimination
Summary: Using the UK Labour Force Survey, this paper studies the wage gaps for disabled men after the introduction of the Disability Discrimination Act. It estimates wage gaps at the mean and at different quantiles of the wage distribution, and decomposes them into the part explained by differences in workers’ and job characteristics, the part that can be ascribed to health-related reduced productivity, and a residual part which the paper can more confidently interpret as discrimination.
The Great Recession and the Distribution of Household Income (2012)
Authors: Stephen P. Jenkins, Andrea Brandolini, John Micklewright and Brian Nolan
Keywords: Great Recession, household income, distribution, cross-national
Summary: This book is a comprehensive analysis of the impact of the Great Recession on household incomes and how the major economic downturn has affected how well-off people are and is the first cross-national comparative perspective.
Changing Fortunes: Income Mobility and Poverty Dynamics in Britain (2011)
Author: Stephen P. Jenkins
Keywords: income mobility, poverty, Britain, household
Summary: This book examines jobs, earnings, benefits and credits, and household changes such as marriage, divorce and childbirth over two decades, in an attempt to examine trends and patterns of British income mobility and poverty dynamics.
Earnings and labour market volatility in Britain (2014)
Authors: Lorenzo Cappellari and Stephen P. Jenkins
Keywords: labour market, volatility, Britain, earnings
Summary: This paper provides new evidence about earnings and labour market volatility in Britain over the period 1992-2008, and for women as well as men. The paper shows that earnings volatility declined slightly for both men and women over the period but the changes are not statistically significant. There is a marked and statistically significant decline for both men and women when examining labour market volatility.
Recent Trends in Top Income Shares in the USA: Reconciling Estimates From March CPS and IRS Tax Return Data (2009)
Authors: Richard V. Burkhauser, Shuaizhang Feng, Stephen P. Jenkins and Jeff Larrimore
Keywords: top income shares, trends, USA, Piketty, Saez
Summary: This paper shows that apparently inconsistent estimates of March Current Population Survey (CPS) and IRS Rax Return Data reports substantially higher levels of inequality and faster growing trends. Using internal CPS data for 1967-2006, this paper closely matches the IRS data-based estimates of top income shares reported by Piketty and Saez (2003), with the exception of the share of the top 1 percent of the distribution during 1993-2000.
More than a minimum: The Resolution Foundation Review of the Future of the National Minimum Wage: The Final Report (2014)
Authors: Sir George Bain, Paul Gregg, Alan Manning, Abigail McKnight, Karen Mumford, John Philpott, James Plunkett, Nicola Smith and Tony Wilson
Keywords: minimum wage, United Kingdom, living wage, income, Resolution Foundation
Summary: The final report of the Resolution Foundation’s review of the future of the National Minimum Wage. The review has worked for the past nine months under the chairmanship of Professor Sir George Bain, the founding chair of the Low Pay Commission, exploring whether the minimum wage and its supporting architecture could do more to tackle Britain’s pervasive problem of low pay.
The Relative Role of Socio-Economic Factors in Explaining the Changing Distribution of Wealth in the US and the UK (2013)
Authors: Frank Cowell, Eleni Karagiannaki and Abigail McKnight
Keywords: household wealth, wealth inequality, debt, housing assets, age-wealth profiles, decomposition
Summary: The US and the UK experienced substantial increases in net wealth over the period 1994/95—2005/06, largely driven by house price booms in each country. The distribution of these gains across households led to a slight increase in wealth inequality in the US but a substantial fall in inequality in the UK. This paper uses a decomposition technique to examine the extent to which changes in households’ socio-economic characteristics explain changes in wealth holdings and wealth inequality. In both countries it finds that changes in household characteristics had an equalising effect on wealth inequality; moderating the increase in the US and accounting for over one-third of the fall in UK inequality.
The Wealth Effect: How Parental Wealth and own Asset-Holdings Predict Future Advantage in Wealth in the UK: Distribution, Accumulation, and Policy (2013)
Authors: Abigail McKnight and Eleni Karagiannaki
Keywords: intergenerational mobility, asset effects, parental wealth, education, employment, earnings, health outcomes
Summary: This chapter explores the relationship between social mobility and wealth-/asset-holdings. In terms of social mobility, it looks at both intra-generational mobility by looking at own-asset-holdings during early adulthood on later outcomes for employment, earnings, general health, and psychological well-being, and intergenerational mobility by looking at the impact of parental wealth on children’s adult outcomes (age 25) covering education, employment, and earnings. The results suggest strong relationships between parental wealth—particularly housing wealth—and children’s educational outcomes, and—partly through these but also through other routes—on to earnings and employment. Early asset-holding—perhaps the product of the inheritance or lifetime transfer patterns investigated in the previous chapter—is also associated with better later employment prospects and higher earnings, as well as with better later general health and psychological well-being (although patterns vary between men and women).
Accounting for cross country differences in wealth inequality (2013)
Authors: Frank Cowell, Eleni Karagiannaki and Abigail McKnight
Keywords: household wealth, wealth inequality, debt, housing assets, educational loans, age-wealth profiles, decomposition
Summary: This paper adopts a counterfactual decomposition analysis to analyse cross-country differences in the size of household wealth and levels of household wealth inequality. The findings of the paper suggest that the biggest share of cross-country differences is not due to differences in the distribution of household demographic and economic characteristics but rather reflect strong unobserved country effects.
"Prison ethnography at the threshold of race, reflexivity and difference" In: The Palgrave Handbook of Prison Ethnography (2015)
Authors: Rod Earle and Coretta Phillips
Keywords: prison, ethnography, men's prison, England, race, reflexivity
Summary: This chapter considers the racialised dynamics of ethnographic research in two men's prisons in South East England. The research processes revealed insights into the vertical (prison officer-prisoner) and horizontal (prisoner-prisoner) race and social relations in the prison field.
The 2011 English riots in recent historical perspective (2015)
Author: Tim Newburn
Keywords: England, riots, historical perspective, civil disorder, comparative analysis, disorder
Summary: This paper offers that the riots of 2011 arguably represent the most significant civil disorder on mainland Britain in at least a generation. Commentators writing in the aftermath of the riots of have pointed both to what are taken to be unusual aspects of the 2011 disorders—the role of gangs, the nature and extent of looting, and the use of social media among others—as well as some of the parallels with previous riots. In placing the 2011 riots in their recent historical context this article outlines a model for structuring comparative analysis of disorder and then moves to consider some of the similarities between 2011 and riots in the post-wart period.
Reflections on why riots don't happen (2015)
Author: Tim Newburn
Keywords: riots, England, disorder, interviews, informants
Summary: In contrast to much of the literature in the field of public disorder, rather than focusing on the nature and aetiology or riots, this paper investigates why riots don't happen. Against the backdrop of the 2011 England riots—though the arguments developed here have international application—this paper uses two case studies involving semi-structured interviews with key informants in two such locations to reflect on why riots don't happen.
Shopping for free?: looting, consumerism and the 2011 England riots (2015)
Authors: Tim Newburn, Kerris Cooper, Rachel Deacon, Beka Diski
Keywords: England, riots, disorder, looting, consumerism
Summary: A number of commentators have suggested that the 2011 riots in England were distinctive because of the character and extent of the looting that took place. In doing so they have argued that the nature of modern consumer capitalism should be placed front and centre of any explanation of the disorder. Whilst concurring with elements of such arguments, this paper departs from such analyses in three ways: 1) it is important not to overstate the extent to which the 2011 riots were a departure from previous outbreaks of civil disorder; 2) focusing on looting risks ignoring both the political character and the violence involved in the riots; and 3) the focus on consumption potentially simplifies the nature of the looting itself by underestimating its political and expressive characteristics.
Despite signs of less punitive policing and incarceration policies, 2014 will be remembered for Michael Brown and Eric Garner (2014)
Author: Tim Newburn
Keywords: policing, incarceration, punishment, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, United States
Summary: The year 2014 saw the trend away from mass incarceration continue and signs of what might be the emergence of an end to the "War on Drugs". This paper claims that while there have been some encouraging signs of a less punitive and exclusionary means of dealing with crime, the killings of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and Eric Garner in New York by police, and the protests that followed, are likely to be the mot memorable events of 2014.
Civil unrest in Ferguson was fuelled by the Black Community's already poor relationship with a highly militarized police force (2014)
Author: Tim Newburn
Keywords: civil unrest, United States, Ferguson, policing, Black Community, England, riots
Summary: This paper takes a close look at the unrest in Ferguson, writing that it has parallels with similar riots in London in August, 2011. Both were sparked by the oppressive policing of black neighborhoods, but the most distinctive feature of the unrest in Ferguson was the militarized nature and reaction of local police forces.
Crime, punishment and segregation in the United States: the paradox of local democracy (2015)
Authors: Nicola Lacey and David Soskice
Keywords: crime, punishment, law, segregation, United States, poverty, education, inequality
Summary: This paper examines the differences in crime and punishment of the United States and other liberal market economies as products of dynamics shaped by the institutional structures of the U.S. political system, including residential zoning, public education, and incorporation of suburbs.
Why should it matter that others have more? Poverty, inequality, and the potential of international human rights law (2011)
Author: Margot E. Salomon
Keywords: human development, law, human rights, international, inequality
Summary: This article offers three justifications as to why global material inequality, not just poverty, should matter to international human rights law, particularly within the post-1945 international effort at people-centered development.
Imprisonment and Political Equality (2015)
Author: Peter Ramsay
Keywords: imprisonment, political equality, democratic state, citizens, inequality, justice
Summary: This paper outlines the logical relations between political equality and the practice of imprisonment by the state. It argues that the reason to imprison becomes less significant the more that formal political equality leads to substantive equality of political influence among citizens.
How parents of young children manage digital devices at home: the role of income, education and parental style (2015)
Authors: Sonia Livingstone, Giovanna Mascheroni, Michael Dreier, Stephane Chaudron, and Kaat Lagae
Keywords: media, digital devices, parenting, income, education, Europe
Summary: The main focus of this report is on the role of parental education and household income, as factors to capture a major source of difference and inequality across households in relation to how they shape parental mediation of digital media.
New Forms of Digital Inequality: Disparities in offline benefits from internet use (from Media Policy Project Blog) (2015)
Author: Ellen Helsper
Keywords: media, communications, internet, digital, inequality, online,
Summary: This article explains how increased online activity does not necessarily translate to tangible, beneficial outcomes (employment, participation, etc) for those with newfound access.
Digital Divisions of Labor and Informational Magnetism: Mapping Participation in Wikipedia (2016)
Authors: Mark Graham, Ralph K. Straumann and Bernie Hogan
Keywords: digital divide, digital labor, information geography, participation, Wikipedia
Summary: This article shows that the relative democratization of the Internet has not brought about a concurrent democratization of voice and participation. Despite the fact that it is widely used around the world, Wikipedia is characterized by highly uneven geographies of participation.
Geographies of Information Inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa (2016)
Authors: Mark Graham and Christopher Foster
Keywords: information inequality, Sub-Saharan Africa, ICTs
Summary: While much research has been conducted into the impacts of ICTs on older economic processes and practices, there remains surprisingly little research into the emergence of the new informationalized economy in Africa. This article addresses the issue of whether we are seeing a new era of development on the continent fulled by ICTs, or whether Sub-Saharan Africa's engagement with the global knowledge economy continues to be on terms that reinforce dependence, inequality, underdevelopment, and economic extraversion.
Augmented Realities and Uneven Geographies: Exploring the Geolinguistic Contours of the Web
Authors: Mark Graham and Matthew Zook
Keywords: augmented reality, neogeography, volunteered geographic information, place, Internet
Summary: This paper analyzes the digital dimensions of places as represented by online geocoded references to the economic, social, and political experiences of the city. These digital layers are invisible to the naked eye, but form a central component of the augmentations and mediations of place enabled by hundreds of millions of mobile computing devices and other digital technologies. The analysis highlights how these augmentations of place differ across space and language and highlights both the differences and some of the causal factors behind them.
Priority or Equality for Possible People? (2015)
Authors Marc Fleurbaey and Alex Voorhoeve
Keywords: egalitarian, prioritarian, philosophy, distribution, utility, existence
Summary: Suppose that, under conditions of risk, one must make choices that will influence the well-being and the identities of the people who will exist, how ought one choose? This paper develops the most plausible prioritarian and egalitarian answers to this question. It also argues for the superiority of the egalitarian answer.
Equality versus priority (2015, book chapter)
Authors: Michael Otsuka and Alex Voorhoeve
Keywords: prioritarian, egalitarian, distributive justice, philosophy
Summary: This book chapter discusses two leading theories of distributive justice: egalitarianism and prioritarianism. It argues that while each has particular merits and shortcomings, egalitarian views more fully satisfy a key requirement of distributive justice: respect for the unity of the individual and the separateness of persons.
Response to our critics (2015)
Author: Alex Voorhoeve, Trygve Ottersen, and Ole Frithjof Norheim
Keywords: universal health coverage, equity, political economy, trade-offs
Summary: In response to Kalipso Chalkidou, Peter Littlejohns, Benedict Rumbold, Addis Tamire Woldermariam, Albert Weale, and James Wilson, this paper addresses issues raised and discusses equity and political economy, the significance of the starting point for Universal Health Coverage, trade-offs, and the need for more information on "what works."
Introduction to the Symposium on Equality versus Priority (2015)
Author: Alex Voorhoeve
Keywords: egalitarian, prioritarian, World Health Organization, utility
Summary: This paper is an introduction to a set of papers commissioned by the World Health Organization on the debate on the nature and importance of the distinction between egalitarianism and prioritarianism.
Making fair choices on the path to universal health coverage: a précis (2015)
Authors: Alex Voorhoeve, Trygve Ottersen, and Ole Frithjof Norheim
Keywords: universal health coverage, equity, political economy, fairness
Summary: This paper aims to clarify issues of fairness that arise on the path to universal health coverage and offers recommendations for how countries can address them. It is premised on the fact that decision-makers face (sometimes severe) resource constrains.
Book review: Matthew D. Adler: Wellbeing and fair distribution: beyond cost-benefit analysis (2014)
Author: Alex Voorhoeve
Keywords: book review, Matthew D. Adler, distribution, cost-benefit, social welfare function, prioritarian
Summary: This book review examines Matthew D. Adler's idea that large-scale public policies should be designed to maximize the expectation of a continuous prioritarian social welfare function.
Making fair choices on the path to universal health coverage: final report of the WHO consultative group on equity and universal health coverage (2014)
Autors: Ole Frithjof Norheim, Trygve Ottersen, Frehowot Berhane, Bonah Chitah, Richard Cookson, Norman Daniels, Nir Eyal, W. Flores, Axel Gosseries, Daniel Hausman, Samia Hurst, L. Kapiriri, Toby Ord, A. Reis, R. Sadana, Carla Saenz, Shlomi Segall, Gita Sen, Tessa Tan-Torres Edejer, Alex Voorhoeve, Dan Wikler, and Alicia Yamin
Keywords: world health organization, who, universal health coverage, equity
Summary: Since 2010, more than one hundred countries have requested policy support and technical advice for universal health coverage reform from the WHO. As part of the response, WHO set up a consultative group on equity and universal health coverage. This final report addresses the key issues of fairness and equity that arise on the path to UHC by clarifying these issues and by offering practical recommendations.
Evaluating risky prospects: the distribution view (2015)
Author: Luc Bovens
Keywords: distribution, risk, policy, philosophy
Summary: Risky prospects represent polices that impose different types of risks on multiple people. This paper presents an example from food safety and develops a model that lets the policy analyst rank prospects relative to the distributional concerns that she considers fitting for the context at hand.
Concerns for the poorly off in ordering risky prospects (2015)
Author: Luc Bovens
Keywords: risky, poorly off, distribution, philosophy
Summary: This paper asserts that the Distribution View provides a model that integrates four distributional concerns in the evaluation of risky prospects. Starting from these concerns, it generates an ordering over a set of risky prospects, or, starting from an ordering, it extracts a characterization of the underlying distributional concerns.
Prioritarianism and the Measure of Utility (2015)
Author: Michael Otsuka
Keywords: prioritarian, utility, philosophy, well-being, morality
Summary: This paper presents a challenge to proritarianism, particularly the view of Derek Parfit. The paper asserts that in discussions of prioritarianism, it is often left unspecified what constitutes a greater, lesser, or equal improvement in a person's utility.
Book review: when a rich society gets a bit poorer: the safety net in hard times (2015)
Author: Kitty Stewart
Keywords: Tom Clark, Anthony Heath, recession, safety net, United Kingdom
Summary: This paper challenges some aspects of Clark and Heath's argument that the financial crisis exposed 'problems with deep roots in the long decades that came before.' The paper argues that the book's account plays down the extent to which social security protected the vulnerable in the early years of the recession, especially households with children. The paper agrees with the book that two long-term challenges exist: persistent low pay and rising income inequality at the the top of the distribution that have not been addressed by the UK government.
"The distribution of welfare" In: The Student's Companion to Social Policy (2016)
Author: John Hills
Keywords: social policy, distribution, welfare, benefits, United Kingdom
Summary: The fourth edition of The Student's Companion to Social Policy maintains the text's inimitable and best-selling approach through the writing of a wide range of experts in the field. It has been updated and revised to take account of recent developments and debates and changing political and economic configurations.
Falling behind, getting ahead: the changing structure of inequality in the UK, 2007-2013 (2015)
Authors: John Hills, Jack Cunliffe, Polina Obolenskaya, Eleni Karagiannaki
Keywords: qualifications, employment, wealth, economic crisis, United Kingdom
Summary: This report contains a detailed examination of the qualifications, employment, pay, incomes and wealth of different groups since the economic crisis. It shows that the legacy of the crisis has not fallen evenly. Across a range of outcomes, people in their twenties have lost most, despite higher qualifications than any earlier generation.
A fresh look at an old question: is pro-poor targeting of cash transfers more effective than universal systems at reducing inequality and poverty? (2015)
Author: Abigail McKnight
Keywords: poverty, redistribution, cash transfers, inequality, welfare
Summary: This paper presents findings on the changing effectiveness of cash transfers and income taxes on inequality and poverty reduction in four EU countries —the United Kingdom, Italy, Sweden, and France—spanning four decades.
The Coalition's Record on Cash Transfers, Poverty and Inequality 2010-2015 (2015)
Author: John Hills
Keywords: tax, benefits and pensions, welfare benefits, social policy, income, poverty, tax and benefit policy, wealth inequality,
Summary: This paper examines how the Coalition's benefit and direct tax policies affect the distribution of incomes, inequality and poverty in the United Kingdom.
Social Advantage and Disadvantage (forthcoming, 2016)
Authors: Hartley Dean and Lucinda Platt
Keywords: social division, injustice, advantage, disadvantage, poverty, social exclusion
Summary: This book captures the sense in which any conceptualisation of disadvantage is concerned with the consequences of processes by which relative advantage has been selectively conferred or attained. It considers how inequalities and social divisions are created as much by the concentration of advantage among the best-off as by the systematic disadvantage of the worst-off.
Welcome relief or indecent subsidy? The implications of wage top-up schemes (2012)
Author: Hartley Dean
Keywords: cash transfers, means-tested, United Kingdom, tax credit, poverty
Summary: This paper examines a key policy response to the downward pressure on wages of the lowest-paid workers through the introduction of means-tested cash transfer schemes by which to top up low wages. Findings are based on beneficiaries of a particular scheme, the United Kingdom's Working Tax Credit.
The Ethical Deficit of the UK's Proposed Universal Credit: Pimping the Precariat? (2012)
Author: Hartley Dean
Keywords: universal credit, wage top-ups, labour market, precariat, ethics
Summary: This article will argue that the moral justification for the scheme that is offered by the UK government is specious and that the reconfiguration of wage top-ups may be counterproductive and do very little to promote work ethic. In addition, the article argues that the new scheme will not relieve but add to injustices faced by the precariat and that the scheme is ethically flawed.
Social Policy: Looking Backward and Looking Forward in Social Policy Futures: Wreckage, Resilience or Renewal: Report of proceedings of the Social Policy’s 100th Anniversary Colloquium, LSE (2015)
Author: Anthony B. Atkinson
Keywords: social policy, poverty, United Kingdom, Ratan Tata Foundation for the Study of Poverty, LSE
Summary: This section of a larger group of papers focuses on the role of social policy in combatting poverty, with particular reference to the United Kingdom and focuses on three questions: 1) Exceptionalism and/or Demonisation?, 2) Are there any grounds for optimism?, and 3) What are possible ways forward?
Doubly Disadvantaged? Bullying Experiences among Disabled Children and Young People in England (2015)
Authors: Stella Chatzitheochari, Samantha Parsons and Lucinda Platt
Keywords: bullying, children, disability, Millennium Cohort Study, young people, England
Summary: This article enhances the understanding of bullying experiences among disabled children in both early and later childhood, drawing on nationally representative longitudinal data from the Millennium Cohort Study and the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England.
The politics and practicalities of universalism: towards a citizen-centred perspective on social protection (2014)
Author: Naila Kabeer
Keywords: universalism, means-tested, social protection, benefits, social policy
Summary: The long-standing divide between universal and residual approaches in the field of social policy is also evident in the emerging agenda around social protection. Underpinning this divide are contrasting worldviews. Arguments in favour of residual approaches are frequently couched in a market-centred discourse that stresses efficiency, incentives and a cost-benefit calculus, while those advocating universalism favour a state-centred discourse and normative arguments. This article attempts to bridge the divide by offering a pragmatic argument for incremental universalism that stresses the responsibilities as well as rights associated with citizenship, and suggests the need to factor in wider economic and social externalities in estimating both costs and benefits.
Downward mobility, opportunity hoarding and the 'glass floor', Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission Research Report (2015)
Author: Abigail McKnight
Keywords: mobility, glass floor, social mobility, occupation, education, social gradients, Britain, children, cohort study
Summary: This paper examines the evidence for a cohort of British children born in 1970 in terms of the relationship between family background, childhood cognitive skills and adult success in the labour market. It focuses on two groups of children: the first group has relatively low levels of cognitive skills at age 5 and on this basis are predicted to be less likely to have highly successful careers; the second group have relatively high levels of cognitive skills at age 5 and are therefore more likely, on average, to have highly successful careers. The paper compares actual outcomes using a measure of high earnings and “top job” status and find social gradients in family background measured by family income and parental social class. It estimates statistical models to seek to identify which variables account for these gradients, factors that could allow advantaged families effectively to construct a ‘glass floor’ to ensure their children succeed irrespective of cognitive ability.
Changing Inequalities and Societal Impacts in Rich Countries: Thirty Countries' Experiences (2014)
Authors: Brian Nolan, Wiemer Salverda, Danielle Checchi, Ive Marx, Abigail McKnight, István György Tóth and Herman G. van de Werfhorst
Keywords: cross-national analysis, social science, inequality, societal impact, rich countries
Summary: This edited volume addresses issues about inequality widely debated in the media in recent years, while advancing academic research in the field by in-depth analysis of country experiences. It Provides in-depth analysis of key issues in the social sciences across a range of disciplines and provides detailed background and information about inequality experiences and impacts in individual countries not found elsewhere. The edited volume applies consistent analytical framework across 30 very different countries examining trends over 30 years.
Divided We Fall? The Wider Consequences of High and Unrelenting Inequality in the UK in Changing Inequalities and Societal Impacts in Rich Countries (2014)
Authors: Abigail McKnight and Tiffany Tsang
Keywords: income inequality, drivers of inequality, education, United Kingdom, social gradients, health, mortality, voter turnout, trust, tax-benefit system
Summary: This chapter examines trends in inequality, the effectiveness of government tax-benefit and public expenditure in terms of reducing inequality, and how inequality trends relate to trends in social, cultural, and political dimensions of people’s lives. This involves the analysis of average levels and social gradients where available. It concludes that the descriptive trends suggest that inequalities in income are associated with divisions in a range of other variables – such as, health, mortality, voter turnout, trust – but there is little to support the hypothesis that higher levels of inequality causes increases in average ‘social ills’.
Changing Inequalities in Rich Countries: Analytical and Comparative Perspectives (2014)
Authors: Wiemer Salverda, Brian Nolan, Daniele Checchi, Ive Marx, Abigail McKnight, István György Tóth and Herman van de Werfhorst
Keywords: income inequality, trends, wealth, education, labour market, cross-national perspective
Summary: This edited volume captures and investigates inequality trends in income, wealth, education, and the labour market, while providing detailed information on inequality experiences across 30 countries examining trends over 30 years. It combines statistically sophisticated comparative analysis with evidence from individual countries experiences and serves as a complement to the volume 'Changing Inequalities and Societal Impacts in Rich Countries: Thirty Countries' Experiences'.
Social impacts: health, housing and intergenerational mobility in Changing Inequalities in Rich Countries: Analytical and Comparative Perspectives (2014)
Authors: Abigail McKnight and Frank Cowell
Keywords: health, housing, intergenerational mobility, well-being
Summary: This chapter focuses on reviewing the analytical evidence on the possible ways in which the impact of inequality is transmitted onto outcomes in health, housing and intergenerational mobility; things that principally characterise people’s well-being in the long term. The channels through which the impacts of inequality occur may be principally economic, or they may involve social and psychological effects. In all three areas the authors find evidence that inequality has a negative association at least in terms of cross-country variation. What remains is the more challenging task of identifying and quantifying a link between rising inequality and worsening outcomes.
Measuring material deprivation over the economic crisis—does a re-evaluation of 'need' affect measures of material deprivation? (2013)
Author: Abigail McKnight
Keywords: material deprivation, financial crisis, need, households
Summary: The information presented in this paper shows that individuals are more likely to express that they do not want or need an item the lower their household income. In addition after 2007 as the economic crisis began to hit households there is some evidence of an increase in the share of households reporting that they lived without these items for a reason other than the fact that they couldn't afford. These findings raise some important questions about what this category is capturing and that classifying these individuals as not materially deprived of an item may lead to an under recording of material deprivation.
Growing inequality and its impacts—UK Country Report (2013)
Authors: Abigail McKnight and Tiffany Tsang
Keywords: inequality, impact, United Kingdom, GINI project, income inequality, trends
Summary: This paper contributes to the work if the GINI Growing Inequalities' Impacts project and attempts to outline different emerging inequalities in the United Kingdom from a social policy perspective.
Measuring health inequality with categorical data: some regional patterns (2013)
Authors: Joan Costa-Font and Frank Cowell
Keywords: health inequality, categorical data, health surveys, upward status, downward status
Summary: Much of the theoretical literature on inequality assumes that the equalisand is a cardinal variable like income or wealth. However, health status is generally measured as a categorical variable expressing a qualitative order. Traditional solutions involve reclassifying the variable by means of qualitative models and relying on inequality measures that are mean independent. This paper argues that the way status is conceptualized has important theoretical implications for measurement as well as for policy analysis. Findings suggest significant differences in health inequality measurment and that regional and country patterns of inequality orderings do not coincide with any reasonable categorization of countries by health system organization.
Intergenerational and socioeconomic gradients of child obesity (2013)
Authors: Joan Costa-Font and Joan Gil
Keywords: child obesity, intergenerational transmission, socio-economic gradient, income inequalities in child health
Summary: This paper documents evidence of an emerging social gradient of obesity in pre-school children resulting from a combination of both socio-economic status and less intensive childcare associated with maternal employment, when different forms of intergenerational transmission are controlled for. It also estimates and decomposes income related inequalities in child obesity, suggesting robust evidence of both socioeconomic and intergenerational gradients. It appears income and parental influences are the central determinants of obesity among children.
Income inequalities in unhealthy life styles in England and Spain (2014)
Authors: Joan Costa-Font, Christina Hernandez-Quevedo and Dolores Jimenez Rubio
Keywords: inequalities in unhealthy lifestyles; obesity; alcohol consumption; smoking; reporting bias
Summary: This study draws from health survey data spanning over a period in which major contextual and policy changes have taken place. It documents persistent income-related inequalities in obesity and smoking; both unhealthy lifestyles appear to be disproportionately concentrated among the relatively poor in recent decades. In contrast, alcohol use appears to be concentrated among richer individuals in both periods and countries examined.
Measuring Inequalities in Health: What do we Know? What do we need to know? (2012)
Authors: Joan Costa-i-Font and Christina Hernandez-Quevedo
Keywords: socioeconomic status; health inequalities; income; education; health
Summary: This paper argues that policy analysis aiming at curving inequalities in health calls for a better understanding of what we know about its measurement pathways. In reviewing the literature, we conclude that it is unclear what the evidence suggests about the reasons for health inequalities as well as the best possible instruments to measure both inequality and socioeconomic health gradients. We provide an evaluation of the different sources of health inequity and we draw upon measurement issues and their policy significance.
Persistence despite action? Measuring the patterns of health inequality in England (1997-2007) (2011)
Authors: Joan Costa-i-Font, Christina Hernandez-Quevedo and Alistair McGuire
Keywords: health inequalities; England; spearhead areas; concentration index; inequality decomposition
Summary: The persistence of socioeconomic inequalities in health is a major policy concern in England, which was addressed by the new labour government in 1997 which prioritised curtailing health inequalities as a policy goal. This study suggests that patterns of health inequalities in England exhibit no significant variation from 1997 to 2007, although importantly, some reduction on inequalities in health, measured through self-assessed health, is found. Patterns of socioeconomic inequalities in health in spearhead areas are not found to be significantly different than health inequalities in non-spearhead areas.
Exploring the pathways of inequality in health, health care access and financing in decentralized Spain (2009)
Authors: Joan Costa-Font and Joan Gil
Keywords: decentralization, health inequality, inequalities in access to healthcare, inequalities in healthcare financing, Spain
Summary: The regional organization of the Spanish national health system offers a 'unique field' for exploring the sources of health inequalities as well as for testing the effects of political decentralization on health and healthcare inequalities. This study suggests that inequalities in health and healthcare appear to be driven by income inequalities and inequalities in use but not by inequalities in financing and health expenditure.
What lies behind socio-economic inequalities in obesity in Spain: a decomposition approach (2008)
Authors: Joan Costa-Font and Joan Gil
Keywords: health information; obesity; education; income effects; inequality decomposition; concentration index
Summary: This paper uses evidence from Spain to empirically address the hypothesis of the existence of income-related inequalities in the probability of suffering obesity in Spain using dat from 2003. It provides suggestive evidence of significant socio-economic inequalities in the probablity of being obese in Spain. However, decomposing such inequalities we find that education attainment and other demographic covariates appear to have a prominent influence. Hence, rather than the so-called pure "income effect", we conclude that socio-economic inequalities in obesity result from the additional influence of other confounding - observed and unobserved - effects.
Would socio-economic inequalities in depression fade away with income transfers? (2008)
Authors: Joan Costa-i-Font and Joan Gil
Keywords: depression; income; health inequities; education and occupational status; mental health; Spain
Summary: Contrary to recent evidence, this paper's findings point towards the existence of significant income-related inequalities in the prevalence of reported (diagnosed) depression. However, the results from a decomposition analysis are more mixed. While a modest proportion of overall inequalities (6-13%) is accounted for by income alone, labour status, demographics and education appear to be more relevant. However, when controlling for potential endogeneity between income and depression by using instrumental variables, income is found to account for more than 50% of overall inequality in reported depression.
The Measurement of Health Inequalities: Does Status Matter? (2016)
Authors: Joan Costa-Font and Frank A. Cowell
Keywords: health inequality, categorical data, entropy measures, health surveys, upward status, downward status
Summary: This paper examines several status concepts to examine self-assessed health inequality using the sample of world countries contained in the World Health Survey. The authors also perform correlation and regression analysis on the determinants of inequality estimates assuming an arbitrary cardinalisation. Their findings indicate major heterogeneity in health inequality estimates depending on the status approach, distributional-sensitivity parameter and measure adopted. They find evidence that pure health inequalities vary with median health status alongside measures of government quality.
Social Class in the 21st Century (2015)
Author: Mike Savage
Keywords: class, society, united kingdom, poverty, wealth, social mobility, inequality
Summary: In this book, Mike Savage and the team of sociologists responsible for the Great British Class Survey look beyond the labels to explore how and why society is changing and what this means for the people who find themselves in the margins as well as the centre.
Introducing the Class Ceiling: Social Mobility and Britain's Elite Occupations (2015)
Authors: Daniel Laurison and Sam Friedman, LSE Sociology
Keywords: social mobility, class, Britain, inequality, occupations, elite,
Summary: This paper uses newly released large-scale social origin data to examine the relative openness of different elite occupations, and the earnings of the upwardly mobile within those occupations.
Introduction: stratification or exploitation, domination, dispossession and devaluation? (2015)
Author: Beverley Skeggs
Keywords: stratification, exploitation, GBCS, Bourdieu, domination, dispossession, devaluation, power, inequality
Summary: This paper locates the Great British Class Survey (GBCS) papers on the elite, and their respondents, within a context that emphasizes a discussion about what is at state in doing sociological research on class. It draws attention to the differences between on the one hand status and stratification, and on the other class struggle perspectives.
Introduction to elites from the 'problematic of the proletariat' to a class analysis of 'wealth elites (2015)
Author: Mike Savage
Keywords: wealth elites, class analysis, class, GBCS, inequality, proletariat
Summary: This introductory paper argues that it is vital to reorient class analysis away from its long term preoccupation with class boundaries in the middle levels of the class structure towards a focus on the class formation at the top.
Understanding Inequalities: Stratification and Difference (2011)
Author: Lucinda Platt
Keywords: inequalities, stratification, life course, difference
Summary: Bringing together the latest empirical evidence with a discussion of sociological debates surrounding inequality, this book explores a broad range of inequalities in people’s lives. As well as treating the core sociological topics of class, ethnicity and gender, it examines how inequalities are experienced across a variety of settings, including education, health, geography and housing, income and wealth, and how they cumulate across the life course.
Nurse or Mechanic? The Role of Parental Socialization and Children’s Personality in the Formation of Sex-Typed Occupational Aspirations (2014)
Authors: Javier G. Polavieja and Lucinda Platt
Keywords: socialization, sex-typed occupational aspiration, parenting, British
Summary: This study analyses the determinants of sex-typed occupational aspirations amongst British children aged between 11 and 15. It develops a model of parental socialization and tests for different channels and mechanisms involved in the transmission of sex-typical preferences.
Long-term ill health and the social embeddedness of work: a study in a post-industrial, multi-ethnic locality in the UK (2014)
Authors: Kaveri Qureshi, Sarah Salway, Punita Chowbey and Lucinda Platt
Keywords: illness, work, incapacity, industrial restructuring, social embeddedness
Summary: Against the background of an increasingly individualising welfare-to-work regime, sociological studies of incapacity and health-related worklessness have called for an appreciation of the role of history and context in patterning individual experience. This article responds to that call by exploring the work experiences of long-term sick people in East London, a post-industrial, multi-ethnic locality. It demonstrates how the individual experiences of long-term sickness and work are embedded in social relations of class, generation, ethnicity and gender, which shape people's formal and informal routes to work protection, work-seeking practices and responses to worklessness.
Reductions in the United Kingdom's Government Housing Benefit and Symptoms of Depression in Low-Income Households
Authors: Aaron Reeves, Amy Clair, Martin McKee and David Stuckler
Keywords: depression, housing, mental health, natural experiment
Summary: Housing security is an important determinant of mental health. This paper uses a quasinatural experiment to evaluate this association, comparing the prevalence of mental ill health in the United Kingdom before and after the government's April 2011 reduction in financial support for low-income persons who rent private-sector housing. It concludes that reducing housing support to low-income persons in the private rental sector increased the prevalence of depressive symptoms in the United Kingdom.
Leaving No One Behind?: Informal Economies, Economic, Inclusion and Islamic Extremism in Nigeria (2015)
Author: Kate Meagher
Keywords: informal economy, inclusive markets, Nigeria, Boko Haram
Summary: This article examines how the post-2015 commitment to economic inclusion affects informal economic actors in developing countries. It highlights the selective dynamics of inclusive market models that generate new processes of exclusion in which the most vulnerable continue to be left behind.
Historical Origins of Uneven Service Supply in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Role of Non-State Providers (2014)
Author: Frank-Borge Wietzke
Keywords: Sub-Saharan Africa, education, wellbeing
Summary: This paper claims that variations in non-state service provision are a relatively understudied dimension of wellbeing inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa. It studies long-term associations in Madagascar between nineteenth-century missionary education and the availability of private schools today.
The Tertiary Tilt: Education and Inequality in the Developing World (2014)
Author: Lloyd Gruber and Stephen Kosack
Keywords: education, development, education spending, MDGs, inequality
Summary: This paper claims that education is widely perceived to be a tonic for the rising inequality that often accompanies development, but most developing-country governments tilt their education spending toward higher education. This paper finds that in countries with high "tertiary-tilts," enrollment is associated a decade later with far higher inequality.
Welfare analysis of changing food prices: a nonparametric examination of rice policies in India (2015)
Authors: Ben Groom and Mehroosh Tak
Keywords: food price shock, India, rice, poverty, welfare analysis
Summary: This paper examines the welfare impact of the Indian government's rice price policies in the light of the global food crisis of 2007-08 using a nonparametric approach for regression and density estimation. The extent of welfare varied among different household types, as the poor in India are heterogenous in nature.
Will no one Plant a Tree in Indonesia? Yes, the Poor will, and on Islands not known for Their Forests: One such is Timor (2015)
Author: Roger Montgomery
Keywords: poverty reduction, agriculture, Indonesia, development
Summary: This paper explores an innovative approach to poverty reduction by the introduction of an agro-forestry variant of sustainable agricultural land technology among rural farming population of an upland district on the western half of Timor Island, East Nusa Tenggara.
Assessing the Impact of Social Mobilization: Nijera Kori and the Construction of Collective Capabilities in Rural Bangladesh (2014)
Authors: Naila Kabeer and Munshi Sulaiman
Keywords: impact assessment, microfinance, social mobilization, collective capabilities, NGOs, Bangladesh
Summary: While Bangladesh has a large and active development non-governmental organization sector, it has undergone a steady process of homogenization, turning from its early focus on social mobilization to a market-oriented service provision model, dominated by microfinance. This article explores the impacts associated with Nijera Kori, one of the few organizations that has retained a commitment to social mobilization, seeking to strengthen the collective capabilities of the poor men and women to protest injustice and demand their rights. The article uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative data to measure the political, economic and social impacts of the organization and to unpack the processes by which the observed changes have occurred.
Gender, poverty, and inequality: a brief history of feminist contributions in the field of international development (2015)
Author: Naila Kabeer
Keywords: poverty, inequality, gender, intersectionality, financial crisis, policy responses
Summary: This paper provides a brief history of feminist contributions to the analysis of gender, poverty, and inequality in the field of international development. It draws out the continuous threads running through these contributions over the years, as the focus has moved from micro-level analysis to a concern with macro-level forces. It concludes with a brief note on some of the confusions and conflations that continue to bedevil attempts to explore the relationship between gender, poverty, and inequality.
Reductions in the United Kingdom's Government Housing Benefit and Symptoms of Depression in Low-Income Households (2016)
Authors: Aaron Reeves, Amy Clair, Martin McKee and David Stuckler
Keywords: depression, housing, mental health, natural experiment
Summary: Housing security is an important determinant of mental ill health. This paper used a quasinatural experiment to evaluate this association, comparing the prevalence of mental ill health in the United Kingdom before and after the government's April 2011 reduction in financial support for low-income persons who rent private-sector housing. It observes that between April 2011 and March 2013, the prevalence of depressive symptoms among private renters receiving the Housing benefit increased by 1.8 percentage points compared with those not receiving the Housing Benefit. The models used estimated that approximately 26,000 people newly experienced depressive symptoms in association with cuts to the Housing Benefit. The paper concludes that reducing housing support to low-income persons in the private rental sector increased the prevalence of depressive symptoms in the United Kingdom.