Events

The Poverty Line: Representations of Inequality

Hosted by the International Inequalities Institute

Thursday 22 September 4.00pm to 5.00pm. In-person internal event. New Academic Building 1.14.

Speaker:
Huiyi Lin, Artist at Chow and Lin, The Poverty Line

Chair:
Professor Francisco H. G. Ferreira, Amartya Sen Professor of Inequality Studies and Director, LSE III

What does it mean to be ‘poor’ in different countries?

To illustrate what it means to live at the poverty line, Stefen Chow and Huiyi Lin (Chow and Lin) visited thirty-six cities across six continents. From the local markets, they bought vegetables, fruits, cereal products, proteins and snacks – the amount of food they could afford per day based on the respective poverty line definition set by each government. Individually, these compelling images show us the basic questions faced by the millions of people worldwide living at the poverty line. Taken as a series, this project allows us to begin to trace the connections and parallels, but also the differences, between the circumstances of those living at the threshold of poverty, no matter where in the world they are.

Huiyi Lin will give a presentation on The Poverty Line project and other art projects related to inequality, consumption and human development issues, with the aim of creating more engagement about these topics and around interdisciplinary approaches to using art as a platform and medium.

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Understanding Inequality in India

Part of the III Inequalities Seminar Series

Tuesday 27 September 12.30pm to 1.30pm. In-person and online public event. LSE Campus, Room TBC.

Speaker:
Professor Reetika Khera, Narendra and Chandra Singhi Chair Professor, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi.

Chair:
Professor Sumi Madhok, Professor of Political Theory and Gender Studies, LSE

The difficulties in measuring inequality in India, given the paucity of data and the compounding effects of social inequality on economic inequality, have been commented upon. Given these constraints, several scholars have documented the very high, and possibly rising, levels of economic inequality in India.

This talk turns the focus to the lack of recognition of the scale of the problem, especially among the rich/ elite in India. The issue requires urgent attention because the proliferation of digital technologies in basic education and health care is likely to exacerbate inequalities in the long run. The widespread misperception among India's rich/ elite that they are 'middle class' contributes to the lack of policy action, including action on fairer taxation policies in the country.

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Democratic Backsliding, Resistance and Hope: The 2022 presidential election and prospects for democracy in Brazil

Hosted by Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity and LSE Latin America and Caribbean Centre

Wednesday 28 September 6.30pm to 8.00pm. Online public event.

Speakers:
Dr Fred Batista, Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration, UNC Charlotte 
Professor Rosana Pinheiro Machado, Professor in the School of Geography, University College Dublin
Amanda Segnini, Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity and MSc candidate in Inequalities and Social Science, LSE

Chair:
Dr Fabrício Mendes Fialho, Research Officer, LSE III

The upcoming presidential election in Brazil is set to be the most decisive vote-casting in the country since redemocratisation in 1985. Jair Bolsonaro, a polarizing far-right populist, is running for re-election after a controversial first term marked by systemic corruption, record high deforestation of the Amazon Forest, attacks against institutions, rising poverty and unemployment, overt bigotry against minorities, and a chaotic mismanagement of the pandemic that resulted in more than 600,000 deaths. As public opinion polls indicate Bolsonaro’s re-election as unlikely, Bolsonaro has discredited the electoral system and threatened to overthrow the regime in a coup d’etat whilst enjoying firm support of a mobilized and loyal one-third of the electorate.

Stakes have never been so high for the survival of Brazilian democratic regime and its institutions. What factors will influence vote choice pro and against Bolsonaro? Who are his followers? What will be Bolsonaro’s legacy to Brazilian politics? What can be done to defend Brazilian democracy? Drawing together a panel of experts the event will seek to address these questions and create a dialogue on the challenges faced by one of the world’s largest democracies.

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The Gender of Capital: How families perpetuate wealth inequality

Hosted by the International Inequalities Institute

Thursday 29 September 6.30pm to 8.00pm. Online and in-person public event. LSE Campus, Room TBC.

Speakers:
Professor Céline Bessière, Professor of Sociology, Paris Dauphine University
Dr Sibylle Gollac, Research Fellow in Sociology, French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS, CRESPPA-CSU)
Dr Sarah Trotter, Assistant Professor, LSE Law School
Dr Ali Meghji, Associate Professor in Social Inequalities in the Department of Sociology, University of Cambridge

Chair:
Professor Sam Friedman, Director of the MSc in Inequalities and Social Science and Professor, Department of Sociology, LSE

Why do women in different social classes accumulate less wealth than men? Why do marital separations impoverish women while they do not prevent men from staying or becoming wealthy? To answer these questions, Céline Bessière and Sibylle Gollac draw on their book ‘The Gender of Capital’, which brings attention to the economic relations in families. They reconsider the effectiveness of legal changes that profess formal equality between men and women, while condoning inequality in practice.

Drawing on research spanning twenty years, our speakers analyse what they call ‘family wealth arrangements’. They break with the common understanding of the family as an emotional haven of peace in a brutal capitalist world, showing how men and women do not reap the same benefits from family wealth arrangements. From the single mothers of the French ‘Yellow Vest’ movement to the divorce of Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos, the mechanisms of control and distribution of capital vary according to social class, yet they always result in the dispossession of women.

Capital is gendered. This event discusses how class society is perpetuated through the masculine appropriation of capital.

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Evaluating Allocations of Opportunities

Part of the III Inequalities Seminar Series

Tuesday 4 October 12.30pm to 1.30pm. Online and in-person public event. LSE Campus, Room TBC.

Speaker:
Dr Francesco Andreoli, Associate Professor of Economic Policy, University of Verona

Chair:
Professor Johannes Spinnewijn, Public Economics of Inequality Research Programme Leader, LSE III and Professor of Economics, LSE

This event will provide a robust criterion for comparing lists of probability distributions - interpreted as allocations of opportunities - faced by different social groups. Borrowing from decision making under objective ambiguity, we argue in favour of comparing those collections of probability distributions on the basis of a uniform - among groups - valuation of the expected utility associated to these distributions. We identify an empirically implementable criterion for comparing these lists of probability distributions - conic extension of Zonotope inclusion - that is agreed upon by all conceivable such valuations that exhibit aversion toward inequality of opportunities. We illustrate our criterion by evaluating allocations of educational opportunities among castes and genders in different Indian states.

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Unfree: Migrant domestic labour in the Middle East

Hosted by the International Inequalities Institute and LSE Middle East Centre

Wednesday 5 October 6.30pm to 8.00pm. Online public event.

Speaker:
Professor Rhacel Salazar Parreñas, Professor of Sociology and Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Southern California

Discussants:
Lina Abou Habib, Director of the Asfari Institute for Civil Society and Citizenship, American University of Beirut
Rothna Begum, Senior Women's Rights Researcher, Human Rights Watch
Dr Steffen Hertog, Associate Professor of Comparative Politics, LSE

Chair:
Dr Shalini Grover, Research Fellow, LSE III

The Kafala System, an employment scheme in the Middle East, has attracted much academic scrutiny and criticism over the decades. Human rights activists align the system with slavery, unfreedom, and human trafficking. In her new book, which she will discuss at this event, Rhacel Salazar Parreñas offers more nuanced accounts of workers relationships with their employers in the United Arab Emirates.

Rhacel's work employs novel methods of researching the Kafala system and its impact on workers and questions concepts such as unfreedom and freedom. Whilst her arguments highlight the dehumanising treatment and lack of recognition of migrant domestic workers, her empirical data crucially illuminates the diversity of work conditions. A key argument is that rather than ‘abuse’ being the main point of reference in Kafala debates, it is the absence of labour standards in the region that leads to unequal and complex employment relationships. A diverse panel of academics, stakeholders and human rights activists will offer their reflections on Parreñas’ book, highlighting their expertise from the Middle East.

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Mobilising Productive Subjectivities: Transnational production and social reproduction in unequal Europe

Part of the III Inequalities Seminar Series

Tuesday 11 October 12.30pm to 1.30pm. Online and in-person public event. LSE Campus, Room TBC.

Speaker:
Dr Ania Plomien, Associate Professor, Department of Gender Studies, LSE

Chair:
Dr Shalini Grover, Research Fellow, LSE III

Drawing on an ongoing collaborative project (with Dr Gregory Schwarz) on transnational labour mobility with Polish and Ukrainian migrants working in the food, housing and care sectors in Germany, Poland, and the UK, this event interrogates the dialectical relationship between (global) forces of production and (local) necessities of social reproduction.

The event focuses on the gendered lived experiences of labouring subjectivities of transnational workers, as they confront the necessities of provisioning in a field increasingly dominated by market (vis-à-vis state and household) resourcing. Plomien considers the role that different historico-culturally constituted ‘productive subjectivities’ play in facilitating the social reproduction of European capitalism and draw out the implications for gender inequality, the extent to which inequalities are being accommodated and re-inscribed, rather than transformed.

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Challenges Facing Liberal Democracies: Citizenship and civil society confronting growing inequality

Part of the III Inequalities Seminar Series

Tuesday 18 October 12.30pm to 1.30pm. Online and in-person public event. LSE Campus, Room TBC.

Speaker:
Professor Thomas P. Boje, Professor, Department of Social Science and Business, Roskilde University

Chair:
Dr Armine Ishkanian, Executive Director of the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity Programme, LSE III, Associate Professor in the Department of Social Policy

Some of the crucial challenges facing all liberal democracies in their aspiration for social cohesion and solidarity are how to provide the conditions for individuals to be active, participative citizens. In other words, how to provide opportunities and frameworks for citizens to be involved in mutual social and cultural relationships and for society and the collective to show solidarity with disadvantaged groups. In this seminar, Professor Thomas P. Boje will discuss some of the major challenges facing today’s liberal democracies when it comes to growing inequality, restrictions on citizenship rights, growing polarization in civic activism and the impact of globalization on citizens’ empowerment.

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Landscapes of Environmental Racism

Hosted by the International Inequalities Institute and Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity

Thursday 20 October 6.30pm to 8.00pm. Online and in-person public event. Sheikh-Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building.

Speaker:
Professor Hazel V Carby, Charles C. and Dorathea S. Dilley Professor Emeritus of African American Studies and Professor Emeritus of American Studies, Yale University

Discussant:
Ruby Hembrom, Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity, LSE

Chair:
Dr Imaobong Umoren, Associate Professor, Department of International History, LSE

Settler colonialism and racial capitalism in the US has resulted in dramatic forms of inequality through institutionalized, geopolitical, and environmental racism. Indigenous, black and Latinx communities suffer the health consequences of living in the most polluted and toxic environments. Indigenous peoples across the Americas are also at the forefront of opposition to the extraction and transportation of fossil fuels. In this event, Hazel Carby will be discussing and showing the work of indigenous artists who are responding to environmental and ecological crises and degradation.

Among the artists discussed are Diné and trans-customary photographer Will Wilson, Chemehuevi photographer Cara Romero, and Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, and Lokata artist Cannupa Hanska Luger. These important works focus on urgent environmental issues, like the eradication of indigenous communities through damming and the ecological devastation of petroleum, coal and uranium extraction, while contextualizing them within the wider history of settler colonialism and racial capitalism. These artists also present new ways of thinking about our environment and imagining the future from indigenous perspectives.

Using Machine Learning to Decompose Inequality: The Case of Opportunity in South Africa

Part of the III Inequalities Seminar Series

Tuesday 25 October 12.30pm to 1.30pm. Online and in-person public event. LSE Campus, Room TBC.

Speaker:
Dr Pedro Salas-Rojo, Research Fellow, LSE III

Chair:
Dr Paolo Brunori, Assistant Professorial Research Fellow, LSE III

According to a widespread view a society achieves equality of opportunity when individuals exerting the same effort obtain the same outcomes regardless of circumstances that they cannot control such as gender, race, and socioeconomic background. This view was formalized by John Roemer in a number of influential contributions. We illustrate an exact analogy between how the phenomenon of inequality of opportunity may be measured and how transformation trees - a machine learning algorithm developed by Hothorn and Zeileis (2021) predicts an output variable based on a set of features. Then, we use data from South Africa (2017) to analyze inequality of opportunity. Our estimates show that the magnitude of this phenomenon is much greater than what has been suggested in the past. Limiting the analysis to only three circumstances - race, parental education and occupation - the Gini of inequality of opportunity ascends to 0.45, twice as large as previously estimated.

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Multidimensional measurement tool for social security framework assessment: Conceptualisation, construction and comparison

Part of the III Inequalities Seminar Series

Tuesday 8 November 12.30pm to 1.30pm. Online and in-person public event. LSE Campus, Room TBC.

Speaker:
Dr Ashish Dongare, Sir Ratan Tata Postdoctoral Fellow, LSE III

Chair:
Professor Francisco H.G. Ferreira, Amartya Sen Professor of Inequality Studies and Director, LSE III

Needless to mention that there exists a strong interconnectedness between various social security programs and their outcomes are also interlinked. Thus, a holistic approach for review and assessment of social security framework is of vital importance. This research aims at providing a measurement tool for assessment of social security framework to enable optimal allocation and utilisation of available resources.

It involves conceptualisation of Multidimensional Social Security Index (MSSI) covering various aspects of social protection including income security, health security, education security. For this purpose, sub-indices representing broader areas of social security are constructed and indicators are curated to evaluate such sub-indices on the basis of parameters like adequacy, coverage, etc. The sensitivity analysis for robustness check of this newly constructed index has been conducted. Further, a case study of India has been undertaken to check the practical application and to assess the status of safety net at selected states in India.

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AFSEE Keynote Lecture - Doughnut Economics: a new economic vision for cities

Hosted by the International Inequalities Institute and the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity

Thursday 10 November 6.30pm to 8.00pm. Online and in-person public event. LSE Campus, Sheikh Zayed Theatre. 

Speaker:
Kate Raworth, Co-founder of Doughnut Economics Action Lab and Senior Associate, Oxford University Environmental Change Institute

Discussant:
Maria Carrasco, Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity, LSE and Executive Director, Entramada

Chair:
Dr Armine Ishkanian, Research Programme Co-Leader (Politics of Inequality) and Executive Director AFSEE programme, LSE III and Associate Professor, Department of Social Policy, LSE

In the AFSEE Keynote Lecture, Economist Kate Raworth will discuss how we can create equal and just cities without overburdening the environment. She will be joined by Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity, Maria Carrasco, for the discussion.

Doughnut Economics, a framework coined by Raworth, sets out a 21st-century economic vision of meeting the needs of all people within the means of the living planet, through regenerative and distributive design. Over 40 cities and regions worldwide have already started to engage with the concepts and tools, aiming to turn these concepts into practice in place. How are they getting started, and what are the challenges they face?

Social Reproduction and Domestic Service: An International Comparison

Part of the III Inequalities Seminar Series

Tuesday 15 November 12.30pm to 1.30pm. Online and in-person public event. LSE Campus, Room TBC.

Speaker:
Dr Marion Lieutaud, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, LSE Department of Methodology and Visiting Fellow, LSE III
Dr Paul Segal, Reader in Economics of Development, Department of International Development, Kings College London and Visiting Fellow, LSE III

Chair:
Professor Alpa Shah, Global Economies of Care Research Programme Leader, LSE III and Professor in Anthropology, LSE

Across the world, over 75 million people are domestic workers for private households (ILO 2021). Previous scholarship has unveiled their working conditions and transnational lives, and how domestic work is built on global inequalities (Parreñas 2015). This paper looks at the households who employ these workers, to understand the context, conditions and inequalities that make it possible for some families to purchase the reproductive labour (housework and carework) of others. Households divide this labour between family, community, the market, and the state. How they do this depends on factors including the extent of state provision of care services, and the degree of economic inequality. In order to identify and weigh these different dimensions, we consider a sample of 8 countries (4 Western European countries; 3 Eastern European countries including Russia; and Mexico) and we use a combination of time-use and expenditure data from cross-national surveys and national surveys.

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The Impact of Caste and Untouchability: A Missing Link in the Literature on Stunting in India

Part of the III Inequalities Seminar Series

Tuesday 22 November 12.30pm to 1.30pm. Online and in-person public event. LSE Campus, Room TBC.

Speaker:
Professor Ashwini Deshpande, Professor of Economics and Founding Director, Centre for Economic Data and Analysis (CEDA), Ashoka University, India

Chair:
Professor Naila Kabeer, Professor of Gender and Development, Department of Gender Studies, LSE

India is home to nearly a third of all stunted children. Previous research has overlooked the critical role of caste and the stigmatizing practice of untouchability in shaping incidence of stunting: upper caste (UC) Hindu children are 57% less likely to be stunted than the low-ranked Scheduled Caste (SCs) children. We document the strong negative correlation between the prevalence of the self-professed practice of untouchability and gaps in stunting rates between the UC-Hindu and SC children. The historical geographical span of Hinduism was bounded to the south by the Vindhya Mountain range. Hence, untouchability and caste practices were more rigid to the North of the Vindhya range, directly under the influence of the Indo-Aryan social order. Our estimates show that the SC children living to the south of the Vindhya range are around 30% taller, and have 40% lower levels of stunting, than their counterparts living to the north.

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Inequality Hysteresis: How can central banks contribute to an equitable society?

Hosted by the International Inequalities Institute

Monday 28 November 6.30pm to 8.00pm. Online and in-person public event. Sheikh-Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building.

Speakers:
Dr Luiz Awazu Pereira da Silva, Deputy General Manager, Bank for International Settlements
Dr Deniz Igan, Head of Macroeconomic Analysis, Bank for International Settlements 

Chair:
Professor Francisco H. G. Ferreira, Amartya Sen Professor of Inequality Studies and Director, LSE III

Growing economic inequality has become a matter of increasing public and policymaking concern in recent years. Some have argued that unconventional monetary policies aggravated this trend, by boosting asset valuations and wealth inequality. The debate is intensified by deep recessions related to the Covid-19 pandemic and resurgent food and energy inflation increasing cost of living in 2022, which unequally impact different groups within society.

This event marks the launch of the book ‘Inequality Hysteresis’, which highlights a new facet of inequality: its persistence or ‘hysteresis’ after recessions. The book shows how inequality increases faster and more persistently in the aftermath of recessions and how greater income inequality is associated with deeper recessions, increasing the risk of an adverse feedback loop. For their part, central banks can most effectively contribute to a more equitable society by deploying the necessary tools to deliver on their mandated objectives of price and economic stability. Our speakers highlight the importance of taking inequality into account when designing and implementing fiscal and monetary policy.

The emergence of a social decolonisation: the question of social change in the French West Indies after World War II

Part of the III Inequalities Seminar Series

Tuesday 29 November 12.30pm to 1.30pm. Online and in-person public event. LSE Campus, Room TBC.

Speaker:
Dr Maël Lavenaire, Research Fellow, LSE III

Chair:
Dr George Kunnath, Assistant Professorial Research Fellow, LSE III

The social change which takes place in the French West Indies after World War II is essentially generated by a sociohistorical interaction between various elements of change observed from 1946 to 1961. Here we refer to the new political status of French Department allowed by a global context, the outbreak of social movements involved in the process of decolonisation, public policies and a specific planning of “economic and social development” as well as the population growth with the emergence of a new generation from a sociological viewpoint. This interactionist process conducts to the new type of society emerging in the French West Indies since the 1960’s, without drastically changing their colonial social structure and racial inequalities. This singular transformation is characterised by new social frustrations, while maintaining existing frustrations that stemmed from slavery legacies in spite of the overall significant improvement of the living conditions.

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Estimating Labour Supply and Informality Elasticities Using Tax-benefit Variation in Latin America

Part of the III Inequalities Seminar Series

Tuesday 6 December 12.30pm to 1.30pm. Online and in-person public event. LSE Campus, Room TBC.

Speaker:
Dr Xavier Jara, Research Officer, LSE III
Professor Olivier Bargain, Professor of Economics, University of Bordeaux

Chair:
Professor Francisco H. G. Ferreira, Amartya Sen Professor of Inequality Studies and Director, LSE III

Tax systems are already in place in Latin America and are constantly expanding in order to finance increasing public spending. Numerous cash transfer programs also exist and social programs are being scaled up in many places. However, these countries face the constraint of a large and persistent informal sector. Compared to Western countries where redistributive systems may discourage employment (relative to living on welfare), direct progressive taxation in Latin America may reinforce the disincentives to work formally and might reduce the tax base. Social insurances or benefits that are universal and not attached to formal employment may also reduce the necessity to be formally employed. This talk suggests a large-scale investigation of the employment response in general, and the informal employment response in particular, to tax-benefit policies using spatial and time variation in Latin American redistributive systems.

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