Weeks One - Six Flashcards
What is inequality?
The unequal distribution of something
Dimensions of inequality?
Wealth, Income, Power, Opportunity
How is inequality measured?
GINI - Gross National Income
What is PPP?
Purchasing Power Parity
What are Proportional Share Indices?
The income of the richest decile ratioed to the income of the poorest decile
Key points of Pickety and Saez (2014)?
Used World Top Income Database to map income distributions in US and Europe.
Wealth inequality greater in the US
Wealth-to-income holds a U-distribution
What is fiscal deregulation?
Removing rules surrounding income and tax
Wealth equation?
Wealth = Income - spending + inheritance + luck
From where is the GINI Coefficient derived?
The Lorenz curve - plots the richest x poorest cumulative income
What is perfect equality vs perfect inequality?
0 = Perfect GINI Equality, 1 = Perfect GINI Inequality
How is the GINI coefficient limited?
Entirely descriptive - tells us there is inequality but not why
What is Theil’s T+L?
Shows whether inequality is due to reasons within or between areas
What did Friedman believe about inequality?
It is inevitable and even desirable as a motivator
Inherited talent is as valuable as inherited wealth
What did Wilkinson and Pickett believe about inequality?
It can only be negative - “The Spirit Level” theory states that inequality erodes trust, promotes excess and increases anxiety in society
What does Branko Milanovic say about geographic inequality?
Luck and effort can change personal circumstances, but not overall inequality
Efforts need to be combined with overall country improval and migration to improve global income position of nations
What did Barone and Mocetti study?
Cyclical wealth transfers in Italy - earning elasticity of 5%, wealth elasticity of 10%
What did the Cycle 8 European Social Survey show?
Welfare attitudes - huge variations across countries as to whether income should differ to reward effort.
Strong agreeance that equal societies should have few wealth differences
Irish people grossly overestimate unemployment levels
Most people want inequality levelling to improve the bottom % rather than impede the top
Those exposed to inequality are most likely to oppose its potential upsides
Compare inequality of outcome to inequality of opportunity
Outcome = variation in resource distribution Opportunity = variation in potential to get these resources
What four factors influence social attitudes towards inequality?
What do they believe to be the source (wealth vs talent)
Imagining/personal depictions of inequality
Efficiency of inequality
Fairness
Compare benign and malign drivers of inequality
Benign = globalisation, technology, demographic changes Malign = epidemics, war, slavery
What four benign factors does Branko believe will reverse inequality cycles?
Politics, Education, Competition, Technology
Who are Groups A, B, and C in global income distributions?
Group A - the median, an emergent middle class from Asian economies
Group B - Richer than A but poorer than C, the ‘losers’ of globalisation as they see no income increase unlike the others, no benefit from neoliberal globalisation
Group C - The richest, global plutocrats
What is import shock?
The belief that jobs are at a loss due to imports, a higher driver for Brexit than racism, associated with negative attitudes towards immigration rather than immigrants themselves
Outline Kuznet’s ideas on within-country inequality
Economic development can both increase and decrease inequality
There will be a proliferation of jobs/wages should there be no intervention in inequality
Wage variation is difficult to suppress
Outline Kuznet’s ideas on between-country inequality
Industrialisation and globalisation moved some causes of inequality from within to between countries
Citizenship premiums and penalties based on geographic location (Branko Milanovic calculated these)
Outline Breen’s key points on social mobility in Northern Ireland
Stormont discriminated against Catholics in housing, electorate and labour
Classes converged over time
Neighbourhoods have a strong impact on social mobility opportunities
Catholics fluidly filled new positions while Protestants stayed the same, levelling inequality
Outline Whelan’s analysis of the 1999 Living In Ireland survey
Social change relies on mobility
Relative mobility depends on social origins
Downward mobility is more buffered than upward
Contrast the micro and macro dimensions of social mobility
Micro = inter and intragenerational (child in relation to the parent, personal position over time)
Macro = cross-national, cross time, cross social groups
Why does Van Degaer propose we care about social mobility patterns?
We can see and describe the movements of society, whether they are rigid or fluid
Equality of opportunity
Equality of life chances
Why are there issues with analysing social mobility?
It is hard to operationalise - do we analyse class, social status, occupation?
What is the difference between structural and fluid mobility?
Structural - everyone wins, overall upward shifts for whole populations
Fluid - winners and losers within the existing structures
Fragmented - a mix of both, generally structural for the lower class and fluid for the upper
Outline the key points of mass education expansion
Nation-states have standardised mass education systems
These systems are independent of localities and their social conditions
The modern polity of nation-states stress the need for mass enrollment
Article highly critiques theories of social reproduction through education
What is functionalism in terms of mass education?
Education diminishes social hierarchies through class integration while simultaneously upholding elite dominance Linked to Westernisation
Outline Blau and Duncan’s path analyses of social mobility
Ascribed vs achieved = inherited vs education
Correlation matrix between direct and indirect influences of inequality
Blau and Duncan believe family education is indirect so one’s socioeconomic position is achieved independently
