Description of Work
This work package will organise and structure the research on social impacts of increasing inequalities to be undertaken in the project. It will contribute (Task 4.0) to the light review (D2)
The main topics to be investigated include:
- the impact of increasing household income inequality and joblessness on living standards and deprivation towards the bottom, as well as on the gap between rich and poor and hollowing-out of the middle, and on vulnerability and “risk”,
- the relationships between changes in women’s labour force participation/earnings and gender roles, patterns of family formation/breakdown, and fertility (including teenage pregnancy).
- the relationship between changing income/labour market inequalities and health/health inequalities,
- the relationships between income inequality and intergenerational mobility, in particular in terms of the intergenerational transmission of poverty and disadvantage,
- the impact of increasing inequality in earnings and jobs on polarisaration/fragmentation between communities, ethnic groups, regions and social classes, and on notions of solidarity and frames of reference within and across countries,
- the impact of broader inequality and labour market trends on specific disadvantaged groups, and in particular the extent to which they exacerbate patterns of cumulative disadvantage across various dimensions for such groups,
- the relationship between changing inequality and the housing market, both in terms of access to adequate housing and of the distribution of wealth, and
- the impact of assets on a range of social outcomes, how asset-poverty varies across countries and how its effects can be mitigated.
The work will be carried out by the core teams in the participating institutions, the country experts, and the associate experts providing invited papers. The co-ordinators in UCD and LSE will ensure that the research proceeds in a structured fashion, that there is intensive communication, exchange and collaboration among participants, and that balance and critical mass is achieved across the range of topics to be addressed.
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