Group items tagged

Interesting discussion of wealth vs income inequality, and our perceptions of wealth inequality and how to tackle it. The Essential Report survey highlights the lack of awareness most of us have about the level of wealth inequality that exists, and also our confusion over what policies are best suited to dealing with it.

When it comes to inequality, a growing body of evidence shows that people across countries underestimate the size of the gap between the rich and poor, including their wages. This can undermine support for policies to tackle inequality and even lead to apathy that consolidates the gap. But how exactly are existing perceptions of inequality measured by social scientists?

Duncan Green (an advisor for Oxfam), writes a great blog on use of evidence in international development and aid. This one (a guest post) is really interesting on how we measure inequality... 'You would think a question like 'Is inequality going up or down?' would be relatively easy to answer, but sadly it is not. At Oxfam we have identified the growing gap between rich and poor and the impact of high inequality as a serious crisis. But how serious is it really?

How does the "smashed avo" hook shape this discussion? Look at how statistics are used in this report to inform the debate and critique a narrow perspective. There's no doubt there are differences between the experiences and opportunities of young people compared to their parents. But when you enter the smashed avocado debate of baby boomers versus millennials, you overlook the inequality between members of the same generation. This also misses other ways inequality is perpetuated, such as through the intergenerational transfer of wealth. It's uncomfortable for many to admit but Australia is a hugely unequal society, both in terms of incomes and wealth. Australian households in the top 20% account for half of the income stream, that's about 12 times more than the bottom 20%. At the far ends of the distribution, the average weekly after tax income of the top 5% is 13 times that of the bottom 5%. But this isn't just an artefact of wealth in different generations. There are multiple ways we can glean this, most notably in relation to poverty.

Is income inequality growing (in America)? This article discusses the issue, and uses a chart from the Financial Times (and Pew research data) to demonstrate the change since 1971. Great visualisation and great discussion of what it shows.

Protests against racial injustice and the COVID-19 pandemic have exposed racial inequalities rife within social and economic systems around the world. Fed up with police brutality and systemic racism against African Americans and other racialised groups, people staged protests against racial injustice in all 50 states across the United States.Apart from these examples, however, there is surprisingly little data or discourse about the impact of the disease on racial and ethnic minorities in the rest of Europe. This silence speaks volumes about Europe's approach to racism.The vast majority of EU member states do not use the concept of race or ethnic origin in data collection, in spite of policies like the European Racial Equality Directive and the Employment Equality Directive which prohibit racial or ethnic discrimination. France outright prohibits it.Without disaggregated data, it is virtually impossible to quantify the extent of discrimination experienced by racial and ethnic groups or the impacts of COVID-19 on their lives.

Interesting discussion of evidence on what does, and does not, work in tackling gender bias in recruitment and management processes. Evidence shows that skills-based assessment tasks (where candidates are given tests that replicate the work they'll actually do on the job) and structured interviews (where all candidates are given the same questions in the same order) have a positive impact on diverse recruitment. Unstructured interviews are more likely to allow unfair bias to creep in. Making promotion and pay processes more transparent can reduce pay inequality: when decisions are reviewed by others, managers realise they need to be objective and evidence-based. Evidence also shows women ask for less money than men. To encourage them to negotiate more, employers should make the possible salary range for roles clear. Studies indicate that women are put off negotiating when they're not sure what a reasonable offer is. "A lot of employers are genuinely really keen to reduce the gender pay gap, and also want to show they're making a change. But they're starved for information about what is likely to work,"

Some fantastic visualisations in this piece from the Guardian, including a scatterplot and some different kinds of histograms! Well worth exploring. "The figures reveal men are paid more than women in 7,795 out of 10,016 companies and public bodies in Britain, based on the median hourly pay. Across the companies and organisations that had filed by 8am on Thursday, eight out of 10 had a gender pay gap. While the figures do not reflect equal pay for equal work, they do raise questions about structural inequalities in the workforce and may hold the answer to closing the gap."