From Theresa May to Donald Trump, our leaders sell it as a utopian system of fairness – but ‘merit’ has been manipulated to privilege the wealthy

Abstract. Elites often use merit to explain, justify, and make sense of their advantaged positions. But what exactly do they mean by this? In this paper, w

Where you are born in the UK and the wealth of your family are the key factors that determine life outcomes, new figures reveal says Faiza Shaheen, a visiting professor at the London School of...

The working classes still get less of everything in education, including respect, argues Diane Reay. She suggests that in order to move towards a fairer educational system, England needs to impleme…

We know that socio-economic advantage can be transmitted across generations, sometimes for long periods, writes Francisco H. G. Ferreira. But how much of the inequality that we observe today is inh…

The middle class is faring worst in the current bout

The affordability of housing is a major issue in many countries. The case of Spain is especially stark, though, with first-time buyers increasingly priced out of the market. Pedro Salas-Rojo charts…

Latin America and Caribbean Inequality Review (LACIR) is an independent scholarly endeavour created with the aim of understanding why, despite major structural economic and social change, inequality...

And these 8 charts explain why.

Currently, a person can be unfairly denied an opportunity on account of their accent, postcode or any other indicator of their socio-economic background. Jennifer Sheehy-Skeffington argues a change...

The long read: The economic arguments adopted by Britain and the US in the 1980s led to vastly increased inequality – and gave the false impression that this outcome was not only inevitable, but good

Analysis of child poverty in federal ridings shows children from Indigenous, visible minority, immigrant and single-parent families are more likely to live in poverty.

Despite seismic gaps between rich and poor, policy proposals to redress the balance have so far cut little ice in the UK. More political leverage could be gained, Mike Savage argues, by drawing att…

Caring is often taken for granted as an activity. But what happens when a social emotion is monetised? Insa Koch explains what the consequences are for those dispensing and those in receipt of care…

Caring is often taken for granted as an activity. But what happens when a social emotion is monetised? Insa Koch explains what the consequences are for those dispensing and those in receipt of care…

Prosperity and justice go hand-in-hand, rather than being in opposition to one another. 

Abstract . The last 50 years has seen a dramatic decline in taxes on the rich across the advanced democracies. There is still fervent debate in both politi

A global survey indicates how the pandemic has sowed inequality, with poor countries suffering the most.