Analyzing Inequality

An examination of the state of the art in stratification research, looking at data, methods, theory, and new empirical findings in social inequality, life course, and cross-national comparative sociology.

This book provides a synthesis of some recent issues and an up-to-date treatment of some of the major important issues in distributional analysis that I have covered in my previous book Ethical Social Index Numbers, which was widely accepted by students, teachers, researchers and practitioners in the area. Wide coverage of on-going and advanced topics and their analytical, articulate and authoritative p- sentation make the book theoretically and methodologically quite contemporary and inclusive, and highly responsive to the practical problems of recent concern. Since many countries of the world are still characterized by high levels of income inequality, Chap. 1 analyzes the problems of income inequality measurement in detail. Poverty alleviation is an overriding goal of development and social policy. To formulate antipoverty policies, research on poverty has mostly focused on inco- based indices. In view of this, a substantive analysis of income-based poverty has been presented in Chap. 2. The subject of Chap. 3 is people’s perception about income inequality in terms of deprivation. Since polarization is of current concern to analysts and social decisi- makers, a discussion on polarization is presented in Chap. 4.

Analyzing Inequalities: An Introduction to Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality Using the General Social Survey by Catherine E. Harnois is a practical resource for helping students connect sociological issues with real-world data in the context of their first undergraduate sociology courses. This worktext introduces readers to the GSS, one of the most widely analyzed surveys in the U.S.; examines a range of GSS questions related to social inequalities; and demonstrates basic techniques for analyzing this data online. No special software is required–the exercises can be completed using the Survey Documentation and Analysis (SDA) website at the University of California-Berkeley which is easy to navigate and master. Students will come away with a better understanding of social science research, and will be better positioned to ask and answer the sociological questions that most interest them.

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.

This book presents multidisciplinary analyses of the historical trajectories of social and economic inequalities in Brazil over the last 50 years. As one of the most unequal countries in the world, Brazil has always been an important case study for scholars interested in inequality research, but in the last few decades has brought a new phenomenon to renew researchers’ interest in the country. While the majority of democracies in the developed world have witnessed an increase in income inequality from the 1970s on, Brazil has followed the opposite path, registering a significant reduction of income inequality over the last 30 years. Bringing together studies carried out by experts from different areas, such as economists, sociologists, demographers and political scientists, this volume presents insights based on rigorous analyses of statistical data in an effort to explain the long term changes in social and economic inequalities in Brazil. The book adopts a multidisciplinary approach, analyzing the relations between income inequality and different dimensions of social life, such as education, health, political participation, public policies, demographics and labor market. All of this makes Paths of Inequality in Brazil – A Half-Century of Change a very valuable resource for social scientists interested in inequality research in general, and especially for sociologists, political scientists and economists interested in the social and economic changes that Brazil went through over the last two decades.

Have gaps in health outcomes between the poor and better off grown? Are they larger in one country than another? Are health sector subsidies more equally distributed in some countries than others? Are health care payments more progressive in one health care financing system than another? What are catastrophic payments and how can they be measured? How far do health care payments impoverish households? Answering questions such as these requires quantitative analysis. This in turn depends on a clear understanding of how to measure key variables in the analysis, such as health outcomes, health expenditures, need, and living standards. It also requires set quantitative methods for measuring inequality and inequity, progressivity, catastrophic expenditures, poverty impact, and so on. This book provides an overview of the key issues that arise in the measurement of health variables and living standards, outlines and explains essential tools and methods for distributional analysis, and, using worked examples, shows how these tools and methods can be applied in the health sector. The book seeks to provide the reader with both a solid grasp of the principles underpinning distributional analysis, while at the same time offering hands-on guidance on how to move from principles to practice.

Amartya Sen’s Inequality Re-Examined is a seminal text setting out a theory to evaluate social arrangements and inequality. By asking the question, ‘equality of what’?, Sen shows that (in)equality should be assessed as human freedom; for people to have the ability to pursue and achieve goals they value or have reason to value. The text lays out the fundamental ideas to Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach. This approach is celebrated in diverse academic disciplines because of its specific contribution towards the improvement to debates on inequality beyond economic deprivation and utility measures. Furthermore, the arguments put forward by Sen in Inequality Re-Examined has had many practical applications throughout policy circles including the Human Development Index, the Multi –Dimensional Poverty Measure, the compilation of lists of capabilities and drawing further attention to human agency and democracy. Amartya Sen won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1998 for his contribution to welfare economics; the core arguments of this work is found in this book.

In a world where the effects of inequality occupy an increasingly prominent place on the public agenda, this book provides up-to-date and thorough analysis from the perspective of a group of researchers at the forefront of social stratification analysis. Exploring Social Inequality in the 21st Century is a clear and critical overview of current debates about social inequality. It includes new information, tools, and approaches to conceptualising and measuring social stratification and social class, as well as informative case studies. Throughout, the researchers describe the direct and indirect costs of social inequality. Divided into two parts – Conceptualising and Measuring Inequality; and Costs and Consequences of Inequality in the areas of Education, Employment, and Global Wealth – it includes new findings about the growth of wealth inequality in the G20 countries, and a detailed examination of tax policies designed to reduce inequality without affecting economic growth. With substantial contributions to the analysis of inequalities in education, and explanations of the processes and consequences of social and gender-based exclusion, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding contemporary social inequality. This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal Contemporary Social Science.