Between-group Inequality Research Articles

CONSUMPTION INEQUALITY IN INDIA AFTER LIBERALIZATION: A CASTE BASED ASSESSMENT

We analyze the consumption inequality in India among different caste groups namely SC, ST, OBC and Others using three rounds of Household Level Consumption Expenditure Survey Data from 1993–94 to 2009–10. Regression analysis shows disparity in consumption expenditure across various caste groups. Values of Gini coefficient, Theil’s Index and overlapping index display an increasing trend in both within- and between-group inequality over time. The possibility of stratification among “Others” is identified. It is found that SCs and STs in particular bear the burden of increasing inequality, indicating possible inefficient implementation of the welfare schemes aimed at these communities.

Crop and Conflict: Exploring the impact of Inequality in Agricultural Production on Conflict Risk

Recent attempts to find a robust empirical correlation between climate variability, crop production and civil conflict risk have been quite inconclusive. In this paper, we argue that the ambiguity in empirical findings may be partly due to a general tendency to treat agricultural production in absolute terms, while neglecting the importance of the relative deprivation triggered by unequal distribution in crop yields across locations and between groups. To test this hypothesis, we rely on high-resolution global gridded data on the local yield of four main crops for the period 1981-2017, and calculate the level of inequality in crop production by means of a Gini index using the grid-cell information on yearly crop yields both at the country level and between identity based groups (regional and ethnic). In addition, for each level of spatial disaggregation, we compute the Gini coefficient using information on crop production from rural grid-cells only. Our results reveal a strong and robust association between crop inequality and the probability of conflict outbreak. This effect is particularly pronounced in the case of inequality among rural areas. Climatic variability, on the other hand, is shown not to increase significantly the destabilizing effect of crop inequality. We also find that akin ethnic competition and discrimination along ethnic lines represent good predictors of conflict outbreak, especially in the case of ethnic conflicts, and when the between-group inequality in crop production is calculated along ethnic boundaries.

Between-group inequality in education in India: a sequential logit model analysis

The study provides an insight into the between-group educational inequality India, where the groups are defined by taking caste and religion together. We propose an index of between-group inequality applicable to ordinal categorical data and compute the between-group educational inequality existing in Indian society and its overtime persistence. Findings reveal an overtime increase in between-group educational inequality in India. We invoke the sequential logit model of regression to assess the probability of transition from lower to higher levels of education. The results of estimation of this regression model reveal a declining trend in the rate of dropout across all levels of education for all groups, though the rate of decline is greater for the advantaged groups compared to the disadvantaged groups. This disparity in the rate of decline is the responsible factor for the rise in between-group educational inequality.

Between-group inequality in education in India: a sequential logit model analysis

The study provides an insight into the between-group educational inequality India, where the groups are defined by taking caste and religion together. We propose an index of between-group inequality applicable to ordinal categorical data and compute the between-group educational inequality existing in Indian society and its overtime persistence. Findings reveal an overtime increase in between-group educational inequality in India. We invoke the sequential logit model of regression to assess the probability of transition from lower to higher levels of education. The results of estimation of this regression model reveal a declining trend in the rate of dropout across all levels of education for all groups, though the rate of decline is greater for the advantaged groups compared to the disadvantaged groups. This disparity in the rate of decline is the responsible factor for the rise in between-group educational inequality.

Changes in Wage Trends and Earnings Differences in Kerala

In this article, the weekly earnings gap between men and women in Kerala is examined by a number of inequality indices such as the percentile ratio and the Gini coefficient. The entropy measures of inequality are used to decompose wage inequality into within-group and between-group inequalities. The earnings inequality between men and women has been increasing, even though their wage grows faster than men’s wage. The indices of inequality suggest the growing wage disparity in the regular and casual labour market. The result reveals that the levels of education and earnings are positively correlated, but women with the same level of education earn much less than men in regular salaried work. The rising wage inequality of men and women during 2004–2009 were associated with the growth rate of wages in the same period. That is, the wage rates of both regular and casual workers have increased more than four per cent during the period that experienced the highest inequality.

Characterizing the Effects of Symbolic and Racial Threat on Charge Modifications in the Juvenile Court

African Americans have long been overrepresented in juvenile justice, starting at arrest and all the way through to confinement. Importantly, some scholars argue examining “back-end” processes of juvenile justice and exploring the utility of different theoretical frameworks may aid in explaining African American overrepresentation. Drawing on two similar theoretical explanations, symbolic and racial threat, this study examines whether disparities are explained better by perceived threats to the dominant group norms and values, as well as between-group inequalities (symbolic threat) or Black encroachment into the political and economic resources of the dominant (White) group (racial threat). Notably, this study explores the effects of symbolic and racial threat on reduced and dropped charges within one states’ juvenile court. Hierarchical generalized linear models are utilized to analyze official Department of Juvenile Justice files, which were supplemented with American Community Survey data. Results indicated strong support for the symbolic threat perspective but fail to support the tenants of racial threat. Implications of these findings and future directions for research were discussed.

Longevity and Lifespan Variation by Educational Attainment in Spain: 1960-2015.

For a long time, studies of socioeconomic gradients in health have limited their attention to between-group comparisons. Yet, ignoring the differences that might exist within groups and focusing on group-specific life expectancy levels and trends alone, one might arrive at overly simplistic conclusions. Using data from the Spanish Encuesta Sociodemográfica and recently released mortality files by the Spanish Statistical Office (INE), this is the first study to simultaneously document (1) the gradient in life expectancy by educational attainment groups, and (2) the inequality in age-at-death distributions within and across those groups for the period between 1960 and 2015 in Spain. Our findings suggest that life expectancy has been increasing for all education groups but particularly among the highly educated. We observe diverging trends in life expectancy, with the differences between the low- and highly educated becoming increasingly large, particularly among men. Concomitantly with increasing disparities across groups, length-of-life inequality has decreased for the population as a whole and for most education groups, and the contribution of the between-group component of inequality to overall inequality has been extremely small. Even if between-group inequality has increased over time, its contribution has been too small to have sizable effects on overall inequality. In addition, our results suggest that education expansion and declining within-group variability might have been the main drivers of overall lifespan inequality reductions. Nevertheless, the diverging trends in longevity and lifespan inequality across education groups represent an important phenomenon whose underlying causes and potential implications should be investigated in detail.

Great Recession and Income Inequality: a State-level Analysis

This paper analyzes the impact of the Great Recession on the income inequalities of racial and ethnic groups, namely whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians, in the USA. As the US economy fell into a deep recession during the late 2000s, the unemployment rate skyrocketed, the stock markets crashed, and incomes significantly declined. Using the American Community Survey from 2005 to 2016, this paper presents novel results that suggest the Great Recession not only increased the overall income inequality in the USA but also within- and between-group income inequalities among racial and ethnic groups. Furthermore, the impact of the recession on inequality is not uniform across these racial and ethnic groups. More specifically, during the Great Recession, inequality among blacks, Hispanics, and Asians has significantly increased, while whites experienced only a moderate increase in income inequality. The findings of this work are both timely and relevant, especially in terms of public policy. Policymakers cognizant of problems associated with within- and between-group inequalities might concentrate on policies alleviating the impact of the recession, especially those geared toward racial and ethnic minorities.

A Note on α‐Gini Measures

This note provides a characterization of α‐Gini inequality measures. These measures generalize the standard Gini index by including one sensitivity parameter α, which captures different value judgments. The α‐Gini measures are shown to be weakly decomposable and unit consistent. Weak decomposition provides within‐group and between‐group inequalities. Unit consistency keeps unchanged the ranking of two income distributions when the income units vary. It is shown that the α‐Gini measures are relevant with either “leftist” or“rightist” views.

Household consumption expenditure and inequality: evidence from Nigerian data

PurposeEnhancing household consumption and reducing inequality are among the fundamental goals of many developing countries. The purpose of this study therefore is to disaggregate household consumption expenditure into food and non-food and, thus, decompose inequality into within- and between-groups.Design/methodology/approachThe study adopts generalised entropy (GE) measures. Second, the study uses regression-based inequality decomposition to ascertain the determinants of inequality in food and non-food expenditure using household demographic and socioeconomic characteristics as covariates.FindingsThe results show that non-food expenditure is the major source of inequality in household consumption expenditure in both urban and rural areas with inequality coefficients of above 0.6 compared to about 0.4 for food expenditure. The decompositions also show that within-group inequalities for non-food and food expenditure are, respectively, 0.97 and 0.365 using the Theil index, while between-group inequalities for non-food and food are, respectively, 0.016 and 0.035. Furthermore, the regression-based inequality decompositions show that variables such as living in rural areas, household size, household dwelling and household dwelling characteristics account for the significant proportion of inequality in food and non-food expenditure.Originality/valueThe policy implication of the findings, among others, is that policies should focus on addressing inequality within rural and urban areas, especially with respect to non-food expenditure than in inequality existing between urban and rural areas. These non-food expenditures include expenditure in education, health, energy, accommodation, water and sanitation.

Inequality Between Whom? Patterns, Trends, and Implications of Horizontal Inequality in the Philippines

An overall decline in inequality within a country, when assessed using national-level measures, can evidently obscure important variation in inequality at the subnational level. However, social planners face a choice, whose importance we argue is often underestimated, in deciding the appropriate spatial and social boundaries along which inequality should be measured at the local level. We illustrate the consequential nature of this choice by examining a historically unequal country that has experienced a recent overall decline in inequality at the national level. Drawing on census micro-data, we show the Philippines made impressive progress in reducing disparities in education and access to basic public services between 2000 and 2010. This change, however, appears less positive when inequality is measured at the subnational level using spatial and social boundaries selected for their socio-political significance in the Philippines context. Specifically, using measures of total, within-group and between-group inequality, we find important differences within and between three salient ethno-religious groupings—Muslims, indigenous persons, and everyone else—as well as within and between three major island groupings, Mindanao, Visayas, and Luzon. We consider the implication of one of these differences—variation in between-group inequality—by examining its correlation with social and political instability at the subnational level. Our findings underscore the importance of examining inequality at appropriate localized levels of analysis and, specifically, selecting carefully the spatial and social boundaries along which it should be measured.

Earnings Inequality in Germany: A Decomposition-Analysis

Several studies have shown that income inequality has risen in Germany until 2005. Less focus was put on the rise of earnings inequality which continued to rise until 2010. We distinguish different groups in the labour market with respect to working-time, gender and region by exploiting data from the German Socio-Economic panel (SOEP) for the years 1995 till 2014. Using the decomposition of the Theil1-index we demonstrate that the increase in earnings inequality is primarily the result of diverging average earnings of the various groups in the labour market (between-group inequality) and to some extent due to increasing earnings heterogeneity within groups (within-group inequality). The former effect is larger than the latter. Without the inequality reducing effect on earnings inequality due to the continuous decrease in the share of full-time working employees and the increase in the female labour participation rate (compositional effect) earnings inequality would have actually further increased after 2010. Independent of the policy target, policy measures to reduce inequality need always to be designed in such a way that they take the whole work force into account in order to achieve measurable effects.

Poverty Impact of Variations in Within-group and Between-group Inequality in Nigeria: New Estimates Using Two Household Survey Data

In an unequal and fragile economy such as Nigeria, providing for the extreme poor, marginalized, disadvantaged, less privileged and vulnerable is still seen by elites as providing for the unproductive segment. This notion seems to be one of the reasons why the elites in government have not done much to scale down poverty and inequality. The study estimates the poverty impact of variations in within-group and between-group inequality using two sequential household survey data, the harmonized national living standard survey, 2010 and the national living standard survey, 2004. Specifically, the study explains the spatial and sectoral variations in estimates of the marginal poverty impact and elasticity with respect to within-group and between-group inequality. The main findings are; first, that within-group inequality and between-group inequality estimates are sensitive to the choice of Foster–Greer–Thorbecke (FGT) poverty measure, and might as well be sensitive to the choice of poverty line; second, that non-homogeneity is due to variations in the initial sub-group distributions; finally, that altering within-group inequality will have more important impact on poverty reduction than altering between-group inequality.

中国人均灰水足迹区域差异及因素分解

PDF HTML阅读 XML下载 导出引用 引用提醒 中国人均灰水足迹区域差异及因素分解 DOI: 10.5846/stxb201709291764 作者: 作者单位: 辽宁师范大学城环学院,辽宁师范大学海洋经济与可持续发展研究中心;辽宁师范大学城市与环境学院 作者简介: 通讯作者: 中图分类号: 基金项目: 国家社会科学重点基金（16AJY009） Regional inequality and factor decomposition of the per capita grey water footprint in China Author: Affiliation: College of Urban and Environment,Liaoning Normal University,College of Urban and Environment,Liaoning Normal University Fund Project: the National Social Science Key Foundation of China（NO.16AJY009） 摘要 | 图/表 | 访问统计 | 参考文献 | 相似文献 | 引证文献 | 资源附件 | 文章评论 摘要:促进我国整体水资源利用率和水环境质量的提升，已成为当前亟待解决的问题。为探究生产要素和其他传统因素对人均水资源环境差异的影响，基于对中国31省区（港、澳、台尚未统计）2000-2014年人均灰水足迹的测算，应用Theil指数和扩展的Kaya恒等式对其区域差异及驱动因子进行探究。结果表明：1）近年全国人均灰水足迹差异缓幅波动，组间差异指数逐渐提升，组内差异为总体差异的主要来源，西部地区组内差异最大。2）在单一要素方面，资本深化和技术效率为全国差异的主导因素，也分别为中、东部组内差异的主导因素；经济活度对各类差异的驱动效应最小，且西部除该效应外，都为驱动差异的重要因素。3）相互作用成分中，除西部资本产出效应与单位GDP灰水足迹相互作用的贡献值最高外，其他地区资本深化效应与单位资本存量灰水足迹相互作用的贡献较大。在技术效率效应与环境效率效应相互作用方面，技术效率的提升可以带动东、西部灰水足迹所占比重下降和中部灰水足迹比重提高。经济活度效应与就业人口人均灰水足迹相互作用的贡献最小。 Abstract:At present, there is an urgent need for solutions to enable an improvement in water resource use efficiency and water environment quality in China. Therefore, this study conducted detailed measurement of the per capita grey water footprint in 31 provinces of China (excluding Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan) from 2000 to 2014. This study explores the regional inequality and driving factors of the per capita grey water footprint to determine the influence of production and traditional factors on the inequality in per capita water resources and environment. The inequality analysis was performed using a factorial decomposition of the second Theil index of inequality. In particular, based on Kaya factors, we decomposed the per capita grey water footprint into the following five factors:environmental efficiency, technical efficiency, capital output, capital deepening, and economic activity. We found that the overall inequality of the per capita grey water footprint showed a slow fluctuation in recent years. The within-group inequality component was the main contributor to the overall inequality during the entire period, since its proportion of the total in 2014 was 59%. A slight decrease was noted in the within-group inequality in each region. In the three regions considered in this study, the within-group inequality was the largest in the western region, with the index reaching 0.0727 in 2014. The between-group inequality index of the total inequality increased annually, from 0.0067 in 2000 to 0.0449 in 2014, corresponding to an increase of 570%. In the aspect of single factors, capital deepening and technical efficiency are the dominant factors in the total and within-group inequality of the per capita grey water footprint of the central and eastern regions, respectively. Economic activity was the weakest driver of all inequality components. In addition to the economic activity, the other factors were vital for driving the within-group inequality of the per capita grey water footprint in the western region, among which technical efficiency was the strongest driver; the relative weight of this factor was 63.61%. The interaction component results showed that the contribution value of the interaction component between the capital output effect and the grey water footprint per unit GDP was the largest for the western region within-group inequality, and that between the capital deepening effect and the grey water footprint per unit of capital stock was greater in the other regions. In terms of the interaction component between the technical and environmental efficiency effects, the improvement in technical efficiency can lead to a decrease in the proportion of grey water footprint in the eastern and western regions and an increase in the proportion of grey water footprint in the central region. The contribution of the interaction component between economic activity and the per capita grey water footprint of the employment population was minimal. 参考文献 相似文献 引证文献

Measuring Ethnic Stratification and its Effect on Trust in Africa

We define and axiomatically characterize an index of ethnic stratification that measures the extent to which the hierarchy in socio-economic positions across the individuals of a society follows ethnolinguistic lines. This index generalizes the idea of between-group inequality to situations where data on economic and ethnolinguistic distances between pairs of individuals is available. We define an estimator of our index that takes the form of a second order U-statistic and has well-behaved statistical properties, and we show that ethnic stratification is empirically related to low levels of trust in other people and institutions at the local level in Africa.

Iran\u2019s Multi-ethnic Mosaic: A 23-Year Perspective

In this study, we embark on measuring inequality in Iran. We compute three measures of group-based inequality (Group-weighted Coefficient of Variation, Group-weighted Gini, and Group-weighted Theil) for the following outcomes: education, assets, income, and expenditure per capita. The groups are defined based on gender, ethnicity/language (Persian, Azeri, and other ethnic minorities), and region (urban versus rural and capital city versus other places) using 23 years of annual Household Expenditure and Income Surveys from 1990 through 2012. Inequality between groups based on religion (Muslim, non-Muslim), citizenship (Iranian, non-Iranian) are also studied using the 2006 census. Our analysis of the trend of horizontal inequality reveals substantial reduction in between-group inequalities over the 1990–2012 period. Yet, gender based income inequality remains high. The implications and underlying reasons for these results are discussed.

Application of Gini, Theil and concentration indices for assessing water use inequality

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to propose the application of Gini, Theil and concentration indices for measuring inequality in water usage.Design/methodology/approachGini coefficients and Theil indices have been used to estimate the overall inequality in domestic water use in a sample of 30 countries around the world. Along with Theil’s L (unweighted) index, liters per capita per day and gross national income weighted Theil index have also been estimated. Theil indices have been further disintegrated into within- and between-group inequalities. Concentration curve is also constructed to study the inequality in water use in accordance to the countries’ economic standing.FindingsDomestic water use is high among the well-off countries considered in the study. Also, the Theil indices indicate that between group inequality contributes more to the overall inequality. It is observed that Theil indices, which consider only per capita water usage and can be decomposed, give a better insight into the existing inequality.Practical implicationsDifferent approaches were used to quantify inequality. The choice of index depends on the context of the study. The proposed approaches can contribute to planning of sustainable water management and development policies.Originality/valueThere is a dearth of metrics for quantifying inequality in water access or use. The study presents the application of indices, widely used in quantifying inequality in access to other resources such as income and energy, in assessing water inequality.

Characterization of between-group inequality of longevity in European Union countries

Comparisons of differential survival by country are useful in many domains. In the area of public policy, they help policymakers and analysts assess how much various groups benefit from public programs, such as social security and health care. In financial markets and especially for actuaries, they are important for designing annuities and life insurance products. This paper presents a method for clustering information about differential mortality by country. The approach is then used to group mortality surfaces for European Union (EU) countries. The aim of this paper is to measure between-group inequality in mortality experience in EU countries through a range of mortality indicators. Additionally, the indicators permit the characterization of each group. It is important to take into account characteristics such as sex; therefore, this study differentiates between males and females in order to detect whether their patterns and characterizations are different. It is concluded that there are clear differences in mortality between the east and west of the EU that are more important than the traditional south–north division, with a significant disadvantage for Eastern Europe, and especially for males in Baltic countries. We find that the mortality indicators have evolved in all countries in such a way that the gap between groups has been maintained, both in terms of the differences in mortality levels and variability.

Social Information “Nudges”: An Experiment with Multiple Group References

Social information “nudges” concerning how others perform typically boost individual performances in experiments with one group reference point. However, in many natural settings, sometimes due to policy, there are several such group reference points. We address the complications that such multiple group social information might introduce through an experiment. The boost to average performance is significant and comparable to the one group case. Between-group inequality does not change. Individual inequality falls, however, because the boost is largest among the pre-“nudge” very poor performers. Finally, the boost to average performance is highest when individuals freely choose their group affiliations.

Quel rôle pour les inégalités dans les conflits ? Étude du cas des conflits religieux en Inde

Ce papier traite du lien entre conflits et inégalité de revenus, et montre l’importance de désagréger les indices d’inégalités par groupes. Plus spécifiquement, il teste le lien entre trois mesures de l’inégalité et les conflits religieux de faible intensité dans les villages indiens. Les trois mesures de l’inégalité sont l’inégalité agrégée (verticale), et sa décomposition pour les groupes religieux, entre une composante intergroupe (horizontale) et une composante intra-groupe (au sein des groupes). Les résultats montrent que les deux composantes de l’inégalité agrégée ont des liens opposés avec les conflits. En effet, l’inégalité intra-groupe augmente l’incidence des conflits entre les groupes religieux. A l’opposé, quand l’inégalité intergroupe joue un rôle significatif, elle diminue l’incidence des conflits. La distribution des revenus au sein des groupes est donc corrélée avec l’incidence de conflits, même pour des conflits identitaires de faible intensité. De plus, la relation empirique identifiée est cohérente avec les théories les plus récentes, qui soulignent l’importance de la contrainte de mobilisation dans l’incidence de conflits. A l’inverse, les résultats sont incohérents avec une interprétation des conflits liés aux griefs ou à la cupidité.